'Ukraine is becoming a global player' amid Iran war, European defense deals
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Ukraine is riding high on a series of deals that promise to intertwine its wartime defense-tech industry, now known for producing drones in high demand worldwide, with European arms makers.
“The general idea is that we as an industry have to become part of a pan-European defense industry,” Ihor Fedirko, director of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry, a government-aligned trade association for Ukrainian weapons makers, told the Kyiv Independent.
Fedirko, a former adviser to the now-shuttered Strategic Industries Ministry, has played a major role in securing these deals.
On April 14, the council announced a round of six such deals. The agreements were followed on the heels of a strategic partnership that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Those deals came just two months after Ukraine announced its first batch of "Build with Ukraine" agreements at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February. Then the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, and Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles and Shahed drones across the Middle East.
The war in Iran has highlighted the need for the kinds of weapons technologies Ukraine has specialized in. With Europe and the Middle East facing widening conflict and growing doubts about U.S. weapons and commitments, Ukraine's defense industry is having a day in the sun.
“The war in Iran showed that Ukraine is becoming a global player,” Fedirko said. “We are starting to play a global role. This is a burden that’s now on the shoulders of the Ukrainian people, but we also have to take pride in what we’ve created.”
New EU Arsenal
Fedirko spoke to the Kyiv Independent in the midst of an ongoing tour of France. Between a flurry of meetings and weapons factory tours, he said he barely has time to enjoy a morning croissant.
“I have to get up at around 6:30 to have a minute to get a coffee and croissant and then relax for ten minutes, enjoying a peaceful life — planes flying, people driving, that kind of carefreeness that we finally want Ukrainians to feel,” Fedirko said.
It is a major departure from his first time in Paris eight years ago, as a private citizen. Since the start of the full-scale war, Fedirko has been working in various capacities as an emissary of Ukraine’s burgeoning defense industry. The recent reception, he says, is warmer.
Ukraine's defense industry has seen a series of major victories in Europe in recent months. Germany in particular has signed onto a raft of deals to bring Ukrainian producers — largely members of Fedirko’s council — into the country, with Germany covering the costs of set-up and donating the first orders to the Ukrainian military.
France is a tougher nut to crack. Never fully trusting the U.S. military umbrella, the French defense industry has maintained a level of independence unique within the European Union.
“We’re about to hear more about French presence, finally. I’m convinced that this will be a big plus for us, for our Ukrainian industry, as French defense is unique,” Fedirko said. “This is a genuinely independent country, they don’t have to ask whether they have the right to use their weapons.”
The recent meetings, Fedirko says, have drawn almost 60 French defense and dual-use companies to meet with 27 Ukrainian firms. In one day, they held 164 meetings between businesses and are now wooing more than 10 French investment funds.
The due diligence process for those funds, Fedirko estimates, will take upwards of a year.
The talk among Ukraine’s weapons makers is all about going international. Ukraine has been working on "Build with Ukraine” and “Build in Ukraine” deals since at least early last July, when Fedirko’s former boss, then-Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin, announced the then-hypothetical agreements.
A subsequent reshuffle in Ukraine's executive branch put those deals on hold. But just as they returned to action, the war in Iran kicked off an arms race among the oil-rich Arab
“Now, even European companies are offering joint projects so as to jump onto the Middle Eastern market. That is, such complicated combinations are appearing, but this all 100% plays to Ukraine’s favor from the standpoint of acknowledging the accomplishments of our armed forces and our weapons.”
Gulf expansion
When it comes to the Gulf, Ukraine has already signed three weapons and defense deals with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The terms of those deals remain a closely guarded secret, but Zelensky has said they run for more than 10 years
As the Kyiv Independent previously reported, delivery delays were a major source of frustration among Ukraine's weapons makers.
Given a free hand, Ukraine's drone makers would have been in the Gulf "the next day," Fedirko said. However, he sees the Gulf deals as the starting point for the first real exports from Ukraine's wartime weapons industry, and said those shipments are coming soon.
“I’m convinced that at a maximum over the next two months we’ll see the first export contracts, at first because of the inherent necessity in the Gulf nations. We get that building a Joint Venture right now is a potential track but it takes time and the first production we’d see in something like half a year. But they need to solve this problem right now,” Fedirko said.
