RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesWestern defense companies are teaming up with their Ukrainian counterparts to combine expertise and to learn from their wartime lessons. Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Anadolu via Getty Images
Western defense firms are partnering with Ukrainian companies to learn from wartime production.
A Ukrainian official said Western firms want to move faster and build under attack.
Western companies point to Ukraine's speed and direct feedback from the battlefield.
Western arms makers are increasingly working with Ukrainian weapons companies , looking to learn from them how to build effectively in wartime conditions.
Many Western companies, including major players, have entered into agreements to develop products with Ukrainian manufacturers, reflecting growing interest in Ukraine's wartime manufacturing experience .
Western firms are interested in partnering with Ukrainian companies "to have those lessons learned that they have gained since the beginning of the full-scale invasion," Davyd Aloian, deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, told Business Insider.
Ukraine's defense industry has expanded rapidly since Russia's full-scale invasion, producing more weapons domestically and attracting greater interest from foreign governments and companies. Aloian described a shift, from Ukraine taking any aid allies could spare, including decades-old equipment, to foreign partners now studying its defense sector .
Western officials say Ukraine's manufacturing processes are central to what they want to learn from Ukraine, and they have encouraged their defense companies to partner with Ukrainian firms.
Aloian said Western firms are interested in how Ukrainian companies operate under attack and move quickly enough to respond to a battlefield changing faster than anything most Western manufacturers have faced in decades.
Ukraine builds fast
Western leaders have praised Ukraine's defense industry for its ability to develop some weapons more quickly and cheaply than many NATO-based manufacturers, even while under threat. They say they want their own countries' companies to adopt some of those practices.
Ukrainian companies can develop, field, and modify some weapons within weeks, particularly drones and other relatively inexpensive systems.
Sir John Stringer, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, told Business Insider recently that "one of the things you're seeing in Ukraine is a sheer pace of adoption and adaptation in technology. It is measured in weeks." That pace, he said, is something Western militaries should study.
German defense company Quantum Systems has started co-producing drones with Ukrainian defense company Frontline Robotics with a joint venture called Quantum Frontline Industries, which it described as "a major step toward a new European drone industrial base driven by Ukrainian frontline innovation and German engineering."
Western allies want to learn from how Ukraine's defense company develop their gear. Mykola Tys/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Mykyta Rozhkov, Frontline Robotics' chief business development officer, described it to Business Insider as a "win-win" that gives Ukraine more of the drones it needs and lets German industry learn some wartime lessons that mean it can "level up their own industry and be prepared."
He said his company could learn from German manufacturing methods while sharing its own "unique approaches to manufacturing" that allow it to move faster and take more risks than some Western firms.
Jørgen Bull, the senior vice president for land systems at Norway's Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, said when his company announced plans to work with Ukrainian robotic systems maker DevDroid that partnerships with Ukrainian industry are important for building future defense capabilities because "the speed of defense technology development in Ukraine today has no equal."
He said working with DevDroid combines its "battle-proven solutions" with his company's decades of experience.
Ukraine builds under threat
Ukrainian companies have also learned how to maintain production under wartime threats. Many are expanding some production elsewhere in Europe, but allies preparing for a possible large-scale war want to understand how Ukrainian firms have continued operating under attack.
Aloian said that Western companies also want to learn how Ukrainian companies have scaled so hugely, especially working in such tough conditions. "The industry has been developed under the most harsh conditions that are currently in the world."
Aloian said Western companies want to learn from Ukraine about the "resilience of the production sites, how rapidly they can restore and regenerate their production volumes after shelling and after hits," and how they're duplicating production lines and relocating manufacturing without decreasing delivery volumes.
Ukrainian companies have split manufacturing across multiple sites. That makes production more difficult but reduces the risk that a single attack could wipe out an entire operation.
Karmo Saar, the head of sales for Estonian company Krattworks, which makes drones used by Ukraine, told Business Insider that European companies need to disperse more, or otherwise, "I think we're going to be punished."
Aloian said that some countries should definitely spread out their manufacturing like this.
Germany's Quantum Systems and Ukraine's Frontline Robotics are working together, describing it as an opportunity to learn from each other. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Ukrainian drone maker General Cherry announced a joint venture with American defense manufacturer Wilcox Industries to produce FPV and interceptor drones for the US.
Wilcox Industries founder and CEO James Teetzel cited Ukraine's working under threat, saying that "to work with a company that withstood the impossible and entered the fight when Ukraine's sovereignty was under threat is exactly the spirit Wilcox w...
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