Mortar launchers at a Ukrainian Armour factory in central Ukraine. Ukraine has been ramping up domestic arms production significantly, unable to rely as heavily as it once did on an increasingly uncertain supply of weapons from its allies. Photo / Brendan Hoffman, the New York Times
The clang of hammers and the whine of drills echo through a factory in central Ukraine, as workers assemble hulking armoured personnel carriers that troops will soon ride into combat — a cacophony that captures this moment in the war with Russia.
Ukraine has been ramping up domestic arms production significantly, unable to rely as heavily as it once did on an increasingly uncertain supply of weapons from its allies.
Last year, Ukrainian Armour, a private company that runs the armoured vehicle factory, produced double the number of vehicles it did the year before, according to chief executive Vladislav Belbas.
“But that’s not enough,” Belbas said during a recent visit to the factory, which also includes an assembly line for mortars. “We need to produce more.”
His view reflects a growing sense of reckoning in Ukraine after three and a half years of war.
United States President Donald Trump’s inconsistent support for Ukraine has called into question the continued backing of the US, Kyiv’s biggest arms supplier.
The Trump Administration recently paused some arms transfers but then reversed course, agreeing to sell weapons to European allies, which will then give them to Ukraine.
But even with greater certainty about the flow of Western weapons, it still does not match what Ukraine needs to fend off the Russian invasion.
That reality has produced a fundamental shift in Ukraine’s appeals to its Western allies.
Rather than pleading primarily for arms, as it did early in the war, Ukraine is increasingly asking for the money to build its own weapons.
The effort involves an array of both private and government-owned firms involved in making vehicles, engines, electronics, weapons, and ammunition.
At the start of the war in 2022, Ukraine relied mostly on artillery, shells, and machine guns donated by Western partners.
Now, it produces about 40% of the weapons used at the front, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and it is looking to increase that amount sharply.
The most striking example of this growing self-reliance is the use of drones, now omnipresent on the battlefield and produced almost entirely in Ukraine.
“This does not bring peace of mind, but it does provide greater moral confidence that we will not be left empty-handed,” Zelenskyy said in February of Ukraine’s booming defence industry.
To further increase production, Ukraine needs more money, which it sorely lacks.
Olena Bilousova, a defence industry expert at the Kyiv School of Economics, said Ukraine had the industrial capacity to produce US$35 billion ($58.6b) worth of military equipment annually, but was producing only up to about US$15b, and was unable to afford more.
“The funding issue is a bottleneck for our defence industry,” Bilousova said in an interview.
Growing self-reliance
- About 40% of weapons used at the front are made in Ukraine.
- The drones it uses are produced almost entirely in Ukraine.
- Ukraine produces more artillery systems each month than all European countries combined.
- It is said to be fully self-reliant for both mortar launchers and shells.
Adding to the pressure to produce more weapons is Russia’s own war machinery, which has expanded greatly during the war. Russia’s defence budget this year is at least US$150b, about three times as large as Ukraine’s.
Russia now produces three times as much ammunition in three months as all of Nato does in a year, Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary-general, said in a recent interview.
The imbalance in arms production has given Russia an overwhelming firepower advantage on the battlefield, even in domains such as drones that Ukraine once dominated.
Ukrainian soldiers defending the embattled city of Kostiantynivka in the east say Russian attack drones monitor the battlefield day and night, targeting anything that moves.
Graffiti left on the bombed-out train station in Kostiantynivka tells the mood.
Partly erased where the station wall was blown apart, the words, in English, can still be made out: “Not asking too much. We just need artillery shells and aviation. Rest we do ourselves.”
Unable to match enemy fire, Ukraine is forced to adapt.
Using feedback from soldiers on the ground, Ukrainian Armour has started producing vehicles designed specifically to evade drones on the battlefield, including a light buggy capable of racing up to 145km/h to outrun drones. Its construction is bare-bones: an open-topped metal frame, suspension, two seats — and no speedometer.
“Why would you need one?” Belbas said with a smile, as he toured the factory. The New York Times agreed not to disclose the factory’s precise location because Russia routinely targets weapons-production sites in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Armour also makes a large, unmanned carrier that shows the growing robotisation of the battlefield.
It is, in effect, a drone mother ship, designed to transport smaller remote-controlled vehicles to the front. The smaller drones, in turn, deliver food and ammunition to combat positions, while the carrier serves as a relay station for signal transmission.
Belbas said robotic vehicles were designed to save the lives of Ukraine’s limited number of soldiers, sparing them from risky missions such as resupplying troops at the front.
“Also, it’s about money,” he acknowledged.
The Ukrainian government pays 15 million hryvnia (about US$360,000) in compensation to the family of each soldier who is killed. Producing a vehicle like this is “five times cheaper,” Belbas said.
These innovations make up only a small share of the company’s output. Most of its production remains focused on battlefield staples such as mortars — weapons that are reliable in all weather conditions, unlike drones.
“The mortars are like the undying classic weapons,” Belbas said as he stepped into a warehouse lined with mortars mounted on two-wheeled chassis. Last year, the company produced about 1000 mortars, roughly double the previous year’s output.
Early in the war, Ukrainian troops used Caesar self-propelled howitzers — big cannons mounted on heavy trucks — to pound Russian positions.
Now, they have largely turned to a homegrown alternative, the Bohdana, producing nearly 20 units a month, Ukrainian officials say.
Bilousova, the defence industry expert, said Ukraine now produces more artillery systems each month than all European countries combined.
As for mortars, Belbas estimated that Ukraine has been fully self-reliant for both launchers and shells since last year. It is a turnaround from the start of the war, when nearly all mortar shells were imported.
Kyiv has also initiated plans to develop more advanced weapons such as air-defence systems — the type of munitions that were the subject of the Trump Administration’s recent flip-flop. (Trump said he did not know who had paused the weapons delivery.)
These sophisticated systems are expensive to develop and build, and Kyiv cannot afford to do so on its own.
Belbas said contracts with the Ukrainian Defence Ministry to produce more mortars, a far more basic weapon, went unfulfilled because of a lack of funding.
To broaden its options, Kyiv recently began a new initiative, inviting its allies to host production facilities within their borders for Ukrainian weapons-makers.
Under this model, Ukraine would provide the expertise, while Western partners would provide money and production sites out of reach of Russian strikes.
Denmark was the first country to officially endorse the plan, in early July, and Zelenskyy said that “more such agreements will follow”.
Facing the twin threats of Russian expansionism and a diminished US commitment to Nato, Europe is also ramping up military spending and weapons production.
Ukrainian officials hope that will mean leaning on Ukraine’s hard-won expertise to help rearm the continent.
“Ukraine needs investment. You need skills, you need technology,” Zelenskyy told Western allies this month in Rome.
“And everything we are building now to protect Ukraine will also help protect you.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Constant Méheut
Photographs by: Brendan Hoffman
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