Can Ukraine Clean Up Its Defense Industry Fast Enough?
The year 2023 has been a grinding one for Ukraine. Battlefield wins have been fewer and less definitive than during the first 10 months of the war, and Russia has gained ground. Now the United States—Ukraine’s biggest military backer—may stop providing assistance. Without that aid, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, recently said in Washington, Ukraine stands a “big risk” of losing the war.
From the moment Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has relied on external help to defend itself. Most of its military needs are funded by outside states, even though the government also spends all taxpayer money on the military. Foreign countries and institutions finance most (and according to some experts, all) of the nondefense parts of Ukraine’s government. Together, Kyiv’s partners have given the country roughly $100 billion in defense aid—about half of it donated by the United States.
[George Packer: ‘We only need some metal things’]
That Ukraine requires outside help is not surprising. With a third as many people as Russia and an economy roughly a tenth as big, Kyiv could have the most sophisticated military in the world, and it would still need external assistance to defeat the Kremlin. But relative size is not the only reason Ukraine has trouble filling its military demands. Kyiv has wrestled with two problems, on and off, for decades: defense corruption and a struggling industrial base. Since well before the Russian invasion, Ukraine has bought military goods at inflated prices and used shady middlemen in its weapons trade. Meanwhile, its domestic defense manufacturers lack the capacity to meet more than a fraction of the country’s requirements.
“Our military is not being properly
