Kamyshin said his country’s arms industry could produce weapons worth about $20 billion. The Ukrainian government plans to issue contracts worth $6 billion, while another $4 billion will come from local partners; Ukraine’s allies could supply the missing $10 billion.
Denmark is leading, announcement of Last month it would allocate 200 million krone (€27 million) to buy kit from Ukrainian businesses. Canada too Promise Donating C$3 million (€1.1 million) to Ukraine for the production of drones by Ukraine’s domestic defense industry.
The idea now is to expand those efforts by using more aid money to get Ukraine to sign procurement contracts.
“Our main task is to raise additional funding for the defense forces in Ukraine. My task is to get this financing for production in Ukraine as we are already capable.” Kamyshin said, “We have additional non-contracted capacities, and we want them to be financed at the expense of European funds.”
Kamyshin said he had discussed with Borrell the idea of using the EU’s European Peace Facility, an off-budget fund that partially reimburses countries for weapons sent to Ukraine. The EU recently agreed to provide €5 billion to the peacekeeping facility’s Ukraine Support Fund for this year, with additional annual cash injections expected until 2027.
“This is short-term, this is a quick solution that could actually be a good solution,” Kamyshin said on the sidelines of the conference, which was attended by about 40 companies from Ukraine and about 100 from the EU.