Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, an organisation representing the country’s armaments sector, is happy just to be alive.
“We are all alive, so it’s okay”, he told Euractiv, responding to questions about how he’s doing. It was a disarmingly simple answer, and yet it was representative of the atmosphere in Ukraine’s defence industry. Production lines run amid air-raid sirens, and engineers redesign systems that are used mere hours later.
It is amidst this reality that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s President last week announced a series of defence agreements with Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. He presented them not as conventional arms deals but as the export of full-spectrum capabilities under a so-called “drone deal” that’s officially transformed Ukraine into a global arms exporter.
The announcement marks a turning point. Ukraine is no longer just a recipient of Western military aid….
