Ukraine’s newly appointed Minister of Digital Transformation, Oksana Fеrchuk, has identified four systemic barriers that, in her view, are limiting the development of the country’s Defense Tech sector.
“Ukrainian defence technologies have already changed the course of the war. At the same time, their potential and long-term impact on the technology business extends far beyond the battlefield,” Ferchuk wrote on her Threads page.
The first systemic barrier, according to the minister, is the regulatory framework. She said it was important to “clearly distinguish between military, dual-use and civilian applications of technologies”. Both companies and investors would benefit from this, she believes.
The second barrier is the domestic component base.
“Stimulating the production of Ukrainian components and components for those components themselves. This is of interest both to Ukrainian DefTech and the European community,” the minister explained.
The third barrier is human resources – human capital and R&D. She said the sector needs more than just developers.
“There is a shortage of product specialists, project managers, procurement specialists, technical experts and engineers. This requires retraining programmes and the restoration of the research and development base,” Ferchuk wrote.
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The fourth barrier is scaling – “the Ukrainian market should become a growth point, not the end point”. According to the minister, the next steps should include private investment, access to international markets and capital, increased company valuations, and exports.
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- Oksana Ferchuk took over as minister on 16 July. Before that, she served as Deputy Defence Minister for Digitalisation, joining the Defence Ministry with Denys Shmyhal’s team.