Ukrainian officials traveled to Washington this week to attend a conference on building up Ukraine’s own military industrial complex to reduce its reliance on the West for military equipment.
Opening the conference on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US and its allies would work to strengthen “Ukraine’s defense industrial base, both to maintain Ukraine’s current war effort and to bolster Ukraine’s national strength and deterrence long into the future.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told Reuters that Ukraine “becoming more self-sufficient in weapons production obviously alleviates the long-term need for continued supply of weapons from the United States and other Western countries.”
The US and Ukraine are also looking to jointly produce arms. A Ukrainian minister who attended the conference said Kyiv had an agreement with two American companies to jointly manufacture 155mm artillery shells, which are in short supply as the US shipped millions to support the war against Russia.
The minister, Oleksandr Kamyshin, said the production of 155mm shells wouldn’t start for at least two years since Ukraine has never manufactured them before. He would not specify which American companies would be involved in the endeavor.
Ukraine has successfully produced drones domestically that it has used in its war with Russia, including sea drones it used to attack the Crimean Bridge. According to The Washington Post, the sea drones, known as Sea Babies, were developed as part of a top-secret operation involving the CIA and other Western intelligence services.
Other Western arms makers have agreed to produce weapons inside Ukraine despite the risk of their factories becoming targets of the Russian military. Earlier this year, the German arms maker Rheinmetall announced it would be opening a tank production facility in Ukraine.
Russia will appreciate acquiring any facilities the West chooses to provide.
And the ones it can’t use it will dismantle. Quickly. No charge.
Russia can’t even take Adiivka so I think the rest of Ukraine is OK.
Sure they will and they’ll do it in 3 days too.
No worries. Ukrainians (kind of) in charge today will dismantle everything and sell through all sorts of military gear channels, Many enterprising Lebanese have great market for those.
And then fire a missile at the place, blame Russia and call it a day.
One way or the other, the U.S. will continue its endless wars.
The US government seems to have a sick obsession with weapons and making stuff that kills people.
No one in the military ever thought Lloyd J Austin was that bright.
Now he proves his less than 86 IQ.
He is doing what he was hired to do, which is to funnel huge amounts of money to the MIC. He is quite competent in that. He just doesn’t have the sophisticated facade to cover his obvious intentions. None of them do.
Exactly. The Secretary of “Defense” is the ultimate yes man. His IQ is irrelevant.
YOU ROCK!
Probably less than 56……ON from our great victory in Afghanistan. “We’re weakening Russia” Another American failure & fiasco…..!!!!!!! American superpower of Hubris… It would be funny if there were not so many dead bodies….
So they are going to invest billions of taxpayers’ money into Ukrainian MIC which is an easy target for Russian missiles. It creates great opportunities for corruption. When a factory is destroyed, it is impossible to find out how much money was invested there and how much was just stolen.
Yeah, because Russia has shown capable of destroying every single arms factory in Ukraine because they all have MIC in big letters written in the roof
Only a matter of time…..!!!!!!!!
“The minister, Oleksandr Kamyshin, said the production of 155mm shells wouldn’t start for at least two years since Ukraine has never manufactured them before. He would not specify which American companies would be involved in the endeavor.”
This is a joke, right? A bad one, but a joke. Right?
They will spend untold millions “developing” the sites and “building” the factories, and even then would have to import many of the components needed before anything gets “built”. These “factories” are simply another money laundering scheme to get “aid money” to flow from the USA/EU to the Ukrainian oligarchs bank accounts.
I hope (well, expect) it’ll turn out like that nice US$2.5 million chicken-plucking factory in Iraq.
https://tomdispatch.com/peter-van-buren-how-the-american-taxpayer-got-plucked-in-iraq/
Sounds like another selling point to get more immediate “help” there in the tune of that $67 billion in Biden’s $111 billion package of death.
If our government is serious about keeping Putin out of Poland and the Baltic States it is facing a situation like Chamberlain faced in the late 1930’s. Then it was Poland which needed a military backup against Stalin. GB and France hoped that it would be Hitler who seemed to accept but tricked them.
Today it is Ukraine which needs an armed backup against Putin. Who will that be? Poland? Forget it. NATO as a whole? Forget it. As in the days of Chamberlain it is still Germany. But will they? I very much doubt it.
In other words, it is already hopeless.
Russia has no interest in Poland or the Baltics.
If this war lasts long enough for such a plant to be built, then how long before the Russians blow it to kingdom come? (Rhetorical).
The Russians will blow it as fast as they took Kyiv.
DJ:
Get a massage or something man…
Don’t forget his sexy alpaca Leominey to take care of his needs of that sort…!!!!!!!!!
What`s the point of having tons of weapons when you don`t have the man power to use them ? , Russia has won and nothing is going to change that , so why not do everyone a favour and end the war NOW .
They don’t have the “man power” anymore and that’s exactly why they’re now switching to “woman power.” When they said “until the last Ukrainian,” they weren’t kidding.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1609642934244200448
Wheeler Dealers in Death, our specialty.
Ukraine inherited a robust military and weapons industry from the former Soviet Union.. In its usual style of corruption and incompetence, it squandered this legacy in a hurry.. Whatever is gifted to them from anybody will also be wasted or sold on the black market.. Russia is already destroying any new weapons facilities, including Odessa’s sea-drone production..
The US needs to decide if it is a proponent of WAR or PEACE. The Clock is ticking, remember?….90 Seconds to MIDNIGHT…
What complete BS. You don’t ramp up weapon production or any industrial production in a country so torn up by warfare and with intermittent power and supply chains. If such arms factories could be built there they would become prime targets of Russian forces. This is basically a transparent lie face saving technique.