Ukraine is seeking funds in the European Union to increase support for its own defense industry and engage additional capacities not tied to contracts.
This was stated by the Minister for Strategic Industries, Oleksandr Kamyshin, as reported by Euractiv.
"Our goal is to find more funds for procurement from Ukrainian arms manufacturers. We have identified several initiatives that may be implemented. In terms of scale and cost, we are effective and capable of producing enough. The only thing lacking is funding," he said.
Options for EU funding According to the minister, one initiative could be "expanding the funds of the European Peace Fund to reimburse the costs of member states purchasing equipment directly from Ukraine and leaving it in Ukraine - this is fast, it works, it will be great."
"Secondly, it is the use of windfall profits from frozen Russian assets, up to 3 billion euros, and including procurement in Ukraine in this program. If you look at Ukraine's defense industry, we have created a good machine that can work quickly - all we need now is to fuel it with stable fuel, which can only be obtained from the profits of frozen Russian assets - without this, we cannot continue to work," Kamyshin said.
According to him, the third initiative will be "including procurement from Ukrainian manufacturers in the European Defense Industrial Programme (EDIP)."
"We don't want to compete, we are doing simple things that work easily and cheaply, and we will complement the European industry, and the combined potential will be sufficient to deter any aggressor," Kamyshin said.
