Lisbon, Dec. 14, 2025 (Lusa) - The director-general of the Ukrainian Defence Industry Council warns that Ukrainian companies must plan for the post-war period if they want to survive, while also continuing their expansion in the meantime, given the uncertainties surrounding a peace agreement with Moscow.
In an interview with the Lusa news agency, Ihor Fedirko said that persistent doubts about the conflict should prompt Ukrainian military producers to prepare for any scenario.
"I want to end this war," the leader of the association, which brings together 280 private companies, said, warning, on the other hand, that the Russians are trying to exploit this desire and "divide the Ukrainians" by trying to impose an agreement "at any price".
The last few weeks have been marked by negotiations on an agreement proposed by the United States, which, in its initial version, involved conditions aligned with the Kremlin, including the cession of Ukrainian territories and Kyiv's renunciation of NATO and its military contingent plans.
This version has been revised by Ukraine, with the support of its European allies, but the parties still seem far from reaching an agreement, despite strong pressure from the White House.
"It is a very difficult issue for me, for my family, for my country. And I know that this will be the main issue in the coming months," the director general of the Ukrainian Defence Industry Council (UCDI), said amid a profusion of contradictory information about the terms of an agreement.
For now, he believes that "the war will not end so easily". He continues the internationalisation of Ukrainian companies, which brought him to Lisbon last week to sign a memorandum of partnership with idD Portugal Defence.
This initiative is in line to increase exports of weapons that his country cannot absorb, while seeking financing to increase production and partnerships with European industry, which in turn faces the challenge of responding to the challenges posed by rising military spending.
Ihor Fedirko noted that a possible suspension of the war means that "procurement and funding will decrease significantly," forcing Ukrainian companies, an estimated total of 800 private and 100 public, to prepare themselves "if they want to stay alive."
In this regard, he pointed to the creation of consortia for priority projects, such as aerial drones or unmanned ground vehicles, armoured vehicles or electronic warfare, as an alternative.
Alongside this strategy, Fedirko highlighted international cooperation as the second axis, allowing Ukrainian manufacturers to set up joint ventures in the territory of Ukraine's partners, to whom they can sell their products, co-produce others and even negotiate with other countries: "This is how we are looking at the future of our sector," he said.
In addition, Ukrainian companies have to consider dual-use technology [civilian and military], leveraging their knowledge and experience on the battlefield and integrating it into their products, as a strategy for a possible end to the conflict. However, he insists that this does not seem an immediate possibility.
At this stage, Ihor Fedirko believes that his associates must reject this scenario and "think about defending the country to the end," not least because of previous experiences of broken commitments by Russian leaders, both in Ukraine itself and in other territories in the region, where "they always ended up returning."
With a production value of $35 billion (€28 billion) in 2025, Ukraine can only absorb 40% of this supply (with a target to increase this to 55% in 2026), which has also been one of the reasons for the need to accelerate exports.
At the same time, the country, under constant Russian saturation bombing, targeting its energy infrastructure in particular, remains dependent on its allies' air defence systems, warns Fedirko, also referring to ammunition, explosives and raw materials, as well as combat aircraft, which have been the subject of recent agreements with France and Sweden.
The same is true of the repeated requests for US Tomahawk and German Taurus missiles, which remain pending political decisions, even though Ukraine already produces its own cruise missiles, such as the Flamingo, but not ballistic missiles.
"The Russians use them a lot, and they are very effective," he comments, adding that more US Patriot air defence systems are needed, as the current ones are insufficient to neutralise Moscow's combined attacks.
"This dependence continues to exist, and we need your support," stressed the UCDI director-general, expressing gratitude to the Portuguese government for its military aid, not only bilaterally, throughout almost four years of war, but also through joint acquisitions of weapons and ammunition for the Ukrainian forces.
In comparison, Ihor Fedirko explains that the two belligerents maintain different weapons production systems, with the Russians adopting a vertical system and basically few essential products, "which are always increasing and improving", such as the approximately 2,000 Shahed drones per month, "which is really a lot", as opposed to a horizontal system in Ukraine.
"We have dozens of companies with dozens of products and our army works with all of them," he says, reporting that the infantry, for example, has to "work with electronic warfare, use different types of drones and robotic systems," in addition to the diversity of equipment donated by allies.
All this makes the value of a Ukrainian soldier "very high" in terms of the time and investment in their training, in a context that he says requires creativity, flexibility and intelligence for the army to be effective against a "huge and economically strong enemy, with vast human resources", but "very rigid" and with "a very high price" in casualties on the front line.
In this struggle between "quantity and quality", the director-general of UCDI praises the efforts to combat bureaucracy by the Ukrainian government, which has allowed this explosion of military equipment companies in a sector that was a state monopoly, with private companies bringing innovation and accounting for 95% of drone production and 85% of radar systems.
On the negative side, Ukraine was rocked in November by a corruption scandal centred on the energy sector, which affected figures close to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The case shocked the country and Ihor Fedirko, who nevertheless welcomes the work of the investigating authorities, which has led to the immediate dismissal of the suspects, and hopes it will not stop there.
"As far as our companies are concerned, we currently have no information that any of them are involved in corruption," he says, commenting that this is a "very painful subject during the war", not least because of his professional background in this area, including his participation in the reform of the Ministry of Defence in 2016.
In any case, he maintains that the issue goes beyond any individual sector and that the fight against corruption must encompass the whole of society, "because it is a matter of an entire country and its dignity."
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Lusa
