Odesa hosted the Effective Industry for Defence Capability Forum on 16—17 July that was organised by the Lviv Security Forum and State Concern “Ukroboronprom”.
Forum participants included NATO representatives, experts, the Ukrainian military, representatives of state-owned and private defence and industrial enterprises, discussed the prospects for developing the domestic military-industrial complex under existing security threats.
Oksana Syroid, the co-chair of Lviv Security Forum and the vice president of the Kyiv School of Economics, said at the forum opening that the defence industry is not just an industry and the manufacture of weapons but much more complex ties, geopolitical alliances and a difficult and critical choice for the state. According to her, common thinking during the forum is very useful and necessary since people produce the knowledge of what should be done, yet there is no genius who would produce such knowledge alone. She is convinced that only joint work and exchange of ideas can produce it.
Yurii Husiev, CEO at Ukroboronprom, has pointed out that investments in innovation and technology, in co-operation with our strategic partners, including NATO, were the foundation for future victories. He believes that today Ukraine is one of the ten countries capable of developing and manufacturing modern missile weapons and the entire line of high-precision weapons. Yurii Husiev is positive that the future is in high-tech drones, and this is not just the issue of unmanned aerial vehicles but the issue of unmanned systems. In his opinion, in the next decade, we will see a multiplication of robotic systems, which will independently determine the target, track and strike without endangering the life of a person controlling such systems.
The forum was also attended by Gordon Skip Davis, NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment Division, who focused on developing the co-operation between Ukraine and NATO in the field of defence and bringing the Ukrainian defence industry closer to the NATO standards. He pointed out that the Ukraine-NATO co-operation programme in the field of defence reform is larger than with any other Partner country and allows Ukraine to use the years of experience and expertise of NATO member-states in the field of defence reform. He emphasised that there are many opportunities for co-operation in the defence sector with both state-owned and private enterprises, Ukraine has great prospects.
The forum is the first public discussion on the challenges and capabilities of the defence industry in Ukraine and brought together more than thirty leading experts in the defence industry of Ukraine and the world.
Learn more about the event at https://www.lvivsecurityforum.org.