Oleksandr Kamyshin, the man tasked with reviving Ukraine’s domestic arms industry, has a dream for his country’s future. Even when the war with Russia is over, he believes, Ukraine should focus on arms production, turning itself into the “arsenal of the free world” and providing weapons for export.

“For the next decades, defence should be the major industry in Ukraine. After the war it should be our core export product,” said Kamyshin, in a recent interview at his office in an unmarked building in central Kyiv.

 

Kamyshin started the war as the head of Ukraine’s state railway network, and won plaudits for the way his team managed efforts to transport millions of refugees to the western borders in the first days of the war.

 

In March, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, appointed him minister of strategic industries. The title is a misnomer, said Kamyshin – for now, there should be only one strategic industry in the country.

His job is to liaise with the army and defence ministry, as well as with Ukraine’s 70 state-run defence enterprises, to try to make sure the army gets what it needs. Generals have complained that even with western arms deliveries they are facing a chronic shortage of the weapons and ammunition they would need to push back Russians further.

Before the full-scale invasion last February, Ukraine’s arms industry was a murky sector of scandals and dubious deals, and despite the years of low-grade conflict in Donbas, weapons stocks were fairly limited when the full-scale invasion came last year.

 

FULL STORY

 

From one of the former most corrupt countries in Europe I find that scary... Ukraine becoming an arms producer dealer?

Selling to the highest bidder?

Just follow the matra "You buy our ammunition we give you the weapons for free"

So Ukraine is intending to join the ''free world''?

Surely if they were to realise these ambitions and were still in a state of war with Russia - they would just get attacked by Russian missiles/drones or sabotage.