It is currently impossible to sign long-term contracts with defence manufacturers because partner funding arrives unevenly. This was stated by Deputy Defence Minister for the defence industry Hanna Hvozdiar during a discussion at the LB.Talks platform titled “What We Will Fight With Tomorrow. How Ukraine Can Win the Technological Race”.
“Partners provide us with funds in such a way that [some of them] they want to keep at home [for their own manufacturers], and therefore long-term contracts today are, unfortunately for us, a pipe dream. We are operating with very small sums of money, and that is a major problem,” she said.
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Instead, Hvozdiar described manufacturers’ working conditions by comparing them to a computer game: “Some Super Mario is running along, and then you get a strike here, the dollar exchange rate changes there, exemptions get taken away here, the Americans cut something off there, the Chinese close the components market there.”
According to her, the Ministry of Defence, together with the deputy ministers responsible for procurement, is looking for ways to build predictability and make procurement more efficient.
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She also separately highlighted the importance of improved planning by the military. According to the deputy minister, the Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi is currently reviewing the strategy for developing the armed forces’ capabilities — and the ministry hopes this will lead to more predictable operating conditions in the market.
Hvozdiar took up the post of deputy head of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine for the second time a month and a half ago and notes: “At the moment, there is little I can report; for now there are big plans and hopes.”
In brief, what was discussed during LB.Talks — watch “What We Will Fight With Tomorrow”: a report from the LB.Talks discussion on how Ukraine can win the technological race
We will publish an extended version of the discussion soon.