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Ігор Вишневський Weapon
31 March 2026, 12:06
2026-03-31
“Come to Zaporizhia – our housewives will show what really works in a real war.” How leaders of Ukrainian miltech companies, military personnel and volunteers reacted to the scandalous statement of the director of Rheinmetall
We have already written about the scandalous statement of the director of the German defense concern Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, which was based on a comparison of the Ukrainian drone industry with «housewives with 3D printers.» It seems that in Ukraine there is no technology and no innovation, but rather handicraft, but here in Europe and America… The careless statement caused such a great resonance that, firstly, the Rheinmetall company itself later decided to soften its effect by publishing an article about the «innovative power and fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people», and, secondly, even the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky commented on it, saying that if such «housewives» manage Ukrainian miltech companies, then Rheinmetall itself could well be headed.
We have already written about the scandalous statement of the director of the German defense concern Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, which was based on a comparison of the Ukrainian drone industry with «housewives with 3D printers.» It seems that in Ukraine there is no technology and no innovation, but rather handicraft, but here in Europe and America… The careless statement caused such a great resonance that, firstly, the Rheinmetall company itself later decided to soften its effect by publishing an article about the «innovative power and fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people», and, secondly, even the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky commented on it, saying that if such «housewives» manage Ukrainian miltech companies, then Rheinmetall itself could well be headed.
dev.ua gathered the opinions of heads and top managers of Ukrainian defense companies, military personnel, and public figures involved in the country’s defense in order to form a kind of «unified position» of the Ukrainian defense industry on this issue.
«Someone is already fighting in the 21st century, while someone is still trying to win the war according to the textbooks of their peers»
Yaroslav Hryshyn, co-founder of the company General Chereshnya, believes that such statements well illustrate the gap between the industrial past and the real dynamics of modern warfare. «It must be difficult to sell armored vehicles that can be destroyed by a drone printed on a 3D printer for 3 hundred dollars,» Hryshyn joked.
In an imaginary dialogue with Armin Papperger, Grishin puts forward his arguments.
Co-founder of the company «General Chereshnya» Yaroslav Hryshyn, photo from his FB
«If housewives are engineers who adapt drones to a new frequency in a week, bypass electronic warfare, and disable equipment worth tens of millions of dollars, then yes, it makes sense. If a LEGO game is a system that scales faster than any defense concern can agree on a technical specification, then we really have a problem. But not in Ukraine,» Grishin wrote on his Facebook page.
According to the co-founder of «General Chereshny», the problem for a European defense company like Rheinmetall lies in the outdated paradigm, where it is still believed that expensive and complex equipment automatically means superiority on the battlefield.
He emphasized that the heads of European defense concerns still do not want to admit that their expensive equipment «is being outgunned by means that cost hundreds of times less, and that the innovation cycle is no longer measured in years.»
Hryshyn thanked our European partners for their assistance, but urged them not to disdain Ukrainian experience and technologies that are being born on the battlefield.
«Come to Zaporizhzhia — our housewives will show what really works in a real war. Europe will only benefit from this. Because the most important thing is not technology, but those who know how to use it. A soldier of the SOU is a unique weapon, not the gadgets he has in his hands. Someone is already fighting in the 21st century, and someone is still trying to win the war according to the textbooks of their peers,» Yaroslav Hryshyn concluded in his post.
«You are dancing on our bones, comparing Lockheed Martin’s budgets to the reality of a country that is losing people every day»
Yaroslav Kalinin, Chief Executive Officer of INFOZAHYST, a large manufacturer of electronic warfare systems and other products, was also outraged by Papperger’s statement.
«I myself am a kind of CEO. Of a Ukrainian defense company. Not on a kitchen 3D printer — on our own production, with our own developments, some of which we created first in the world. We make components, technologies, and code ourselves,» Kalinin said in his post.
Chief Executive Officer at INFOZAHYST Yaroslav Kalinin
He also emphasized that Europe did not want to share its technologies with Ukraine, so we had to do everything «from scratch» — there was simply no other way out.
«Not because they wanted to reinvent the wheel. But because your «leading Western companies» didn’t sell it to us. Not before a full-scale invasion, nor, often, after. That’s why we’re going to our own chips and metamaterials — not out of ambition, but out of a dead end created by your own «civilized world,» Kalinin harshly walked along the Western defense.
He also explained why the director of Rheinmetall is wrong in his assessment of innovations and their presence or absence in Ukrainian miltech.
«Innovation is when you solve a problem that no one has solved before you. A $500 FPV drone that destroys a tank worth millions is innovation. Not by your corporate standards, but by the only standard that matters in war — efficiency,» says Kalinin.
He stated that he was annoyed by the «caution» of the measure, which provides very «measured» assistance to Ukraine.
«You know that weapons are given to us in doses. That technologies are transferred with caution. That we are fighting in conditions that you cannot even imagine. And in these conditions, you are dancing on our bones, comparing Lockheed Martin’s budgets with the reality of a country that loses people every day. We have innovations. We have technologies. And we will have our own inventions — not thanks to you, but in spite of you,» the CEO of INFOZAHYST concluded his emotional post. Separately, he added — «Don’t mess with Ukrainians. Especially when it comes to freedom.»
«This is not a 'Lego game.' This is real-time industrial Darwinism.»
The founder of TAF Industries, Oleksandr Yakovenko, like his colleagues from other Ukrainian miltech companies, also could not miss Armin Papperger’s words.
«When you called Ukrainian drone manufacturers 'Ukrainian housewives with 3D printers in the kitchen', you demonstrated how deeply the European defense establishment still does not understand the nature of modern warfare. This is not about emotions. This is about reality on the battlefield,» Yakovenko stated .
Founder of TAF Industries Oleksandr Yakovenko
The founder of TAF Industries supported his arguments in a correspondence discussion with the director of the German defense concern Rheinmetall with numbers.
«In 2025 alone, Ukrainian drones carried out 819,737 confirmed strikes. They caused 90% of all combat losses of the Russian army — more than all other types of weapons combined,» Yakovenko noted.
According to him, TAF Industries alone produces up to 100,000 FPV drones per month.
«In any 90 days, my company’s products alone have more confirmed hits than your entire fleet of equipment, in its entire history of combat use in all conflicts. And most importantly, I created this company and this result in two years, not 50. Think about it. Our drones achieve a greater kinetic effect in three months than your flagship platforms in half a century,» Yakovenko emphasized.
He explained that the modern battlefield has changed, but the business model of large European defense companies has not. At the same time, Russian electronic warfare, as Yakovenko says, has made GPS-guided Western munitions (Excalibur, GMLRS, etc.) almost ineffective, and expensive and complex systems designed for air superiority and classic peer-on-peer warfare have become easy prey for $500–2,000 drones that hunt them from above.
«The cost-benefit ratio has been reversed: one 120 mm Rheinmetall shell or one anti-tank missile costs more than a dozen of our drones, and our drones still win. This is not a „Lego game“. This is real-time industrial Darwinism. We iterate every week. We lose missile factories and rebuild them in weeks. We print parts in basements and ship 100,000 strike systems a month, while your engineers still need 3-5 years and hundreds of millions of euros to certify even a minor upgrade,» Yakovenko continues his arguments.
He believes that the war in Ukraine is not a temporary anomaly, but the first real drone-industrial war, which has already proven that outdated European platforms — no matter how expensive or «serious» they are — are becoming less and less relevant if they do not integrate the very technologies that Papperger mocked.
The founder of TAF Industries invited his German colleague not to «laugh at the kitchen table,» but to come to Ukraine and see «how the war of tomorrow is really fought.»
«Because the next time someone asks, ‘Who needs tanks in the age of drones?’ the answer may be simpler than you think: those who still believe in 1979 will lose to those who build in 2026,» Yakovenko concluded his post.
«The „Inferiority“ battalion raised its head here, and they started saying that everything here is made of shit and sticks»
The founder of the NGO «Aerial Intelligence Support Center», the head of the project for technological strengthening of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine Victory Drones, co-founder of the Dignitas Foundation, volunteer and public figure Maria Berlinska criticized those colleagues from the Ukrainian defense industry who tried to justify Papperger’s statement and support him in this discussion.
«The „Inferiority“ battalion raised its head here, and they started saying that everything here is made of shit and sticks. It’s good that „Inferiority“ is becoming a minority among us, after all,» Berlinska said on her Facebook page.
Volunteer and public figure Maria Berlinska, photo from her FB
She recalled that she once came up with the idea for the «drones in the kitchen» project — a people’s FPV.
«Of course, the essence of the idea was not in the kitchens, but in the expansion of system production. This had a colossal effect at the time — it provided the industry with tens of thousands of specialists, hundreds of production facilities were opened, the engineering and repair component in the rear and in the troops was improved. And in general, this laid another stone in the base of military-technological culture for our country,» Berlinska noted.
At the same time, she acknowledged that Ukraine needs high technologies and we do not have them in such quantities as in «giant Western companies, where lobbyists have been dragging buckets of taxpayer money for half a century.»
Berlinska assured that the main measure of technology and its innovation should be effectiveness on the battlefield, even if someone calls our technologies primitive.
«In war, everything that kills the opponent and saves our own is good. And we killed the enemy with our «kitchen» technologies a thousand times more than any Rheinmetall in its entire history. Yes, with drones made «in kitchens», by Ukrainian «housewives», yeah. And it is clear that the arrogant, bureaucratic, defense giant does not like this very much. «How dare these Ukrainian savages say that they can do something serious in defense?! This is only our right, and our budgets!», she played out an imaginary dialogue.
Berlinska stated that we may all have the opportunity to see «what statements Mr. Papperger will use to repel the Russian-Chinese offensive against EU countries in the coming years,» and whether «an innovative, arrogant technology of denying reality» will help him.
«The gigantism of the dinosaurs that ruled the planet did not save them»
The commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Robert «Magyar» Brody, whose soldiers, like no other, understand the effectiveness of drone technology and force the enemy to understand it, could not leave this statement without his comment. He commented on it in his own specific manner with interesting comparisons.
Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Robert «Magyar» Brody
«The freedom-loving Ukrainian Ptah is not an innovation, it is a revolution of war. A competition of firmware and frequencies. And yes, it hurts industrialists, because high-precision weapons are being democratized with „kitchen shit and sticks“. Among other things, it is a „cloud“ plant that cannot be stopped by shaking up a rocket or drones, like Ust-Luga. And the speed of iterations is measured in Machs,» Madyar wrote on his page.
He was not without humor, comparing large defense concerns to dinosaurs.
«The gigantism of the dinosaurs that ruled the planet did not save them. A new doctrine, a new war,» noted the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces.
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