Gunsmith Fedirko: Ukraine’s defense industry includes over 1,000 private companies and 2,000 startups
This was stated in an interview with Ukrinform by Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Gunsmiths.
“The growth is tremendous. More than a thousand private companies are already active on the market. Their number has increased significantly. Brave1 [Ukraine’s defense innovation cluster] reports that more than 2,000 startups are registered in its database. This is a huge ecosystem comprising over 3,000 enterprises, and it is still growing,” Fedirko said.
The CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Gunsmiths noted that many companies are now expanding through the acquisition of smaller firms.
“We see these acquisitions almost every day. Companies are acquiring technologies and teams. People are worth their weight in gold now because they are difficult to find and require extensive training. We also see that most companies are moving beyond simply addressing domestic needs and are focusing on codification, as well as securing loans to expand production,” Fedirko said.
He emphasized that approximately 80% of the Ministry of Defense’s budget is now being executed domestically.
“If last year the figure was around 50%, we are now talking about roughly 80% of the Ministry of Defense budget being spent within Ukraine. Only about 20% is used to procure certain types of weaponry abroad,” he said.
As reported by Ukrinform, on June 10, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed in its second reading and in full a package of amendments to the 2026 state budget, primarily aimed at increasing expenditures for the security and defense sector by UAH 1.56 trillion.
