Ukraine picks up military equipment production

After a critical period last year, when a good deal of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry’s resources were used to import equipment, the ministry is now ready to channel a maximum volume of funds to the Ukrainian arms industry. “This applies to all components – from uniforms, shoes, body armor and UAVs to heavy weapons and ammunition,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.

“The Defense Ministry did not flaunt this, but all of the last year we did not stop purchasing military materiel from domestic manufacturers,” the minister wrote in a Facebook post while boasting of a new Ukrainian-made 155-mm self-propelled howitzer Bohdana.

Bohdana has already been successfully tested on the battlefield, and the new artillery systems will be covering the soon-to-come Western-made tanks in battles, according to Reznikov.

The Defense Ministry also announced that it had awarded 16 contracts to Ukrainian drone makers, according to UNIAN.

The ministry says it has streamlined its army clearance procedure for UAVs so that it is now Europe’s simplest. As a result, in three past months alone, it received 75 bids from Ukrainian companies for manufacturing various types of military UAVs.