Why Ukraine's Joint Weapons Drive Is Stalling
Joint weapons production in Ukraine is being held back by strict Western military rules and slow regulation in Kyiv, according to the Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS) at King's College London.
The finding is in a report titled 'Beyond Aid: Making Ukraine Defence Cooperation Work', described by experts to Al Jazeera on Oct. 1, 2026. Al Jazeera
For two years, Kyiv has tried to expand weapons production by inviting Western partners to pay for new factories in Ukraine. In return, partners would get battlefield testing. New weapons could be tried on the front line and improved with direct feedback, like a live test track for designs still being refined. The goal was to turn wartime need into lasting factory capacity inside Ukraine.
The report counts at least 180 business-to-business partnerships between Ukrainian and foreign defence firms. Twenty-two percent are stalled. That means more than one in five deals is not moving forward.
A production drive stalls
The planned artillery shell factory from the German firm Rheinmetall is one example. The company announced the plant a year ago. It should now be starting production. Ground has not been broken.
Ukrainian authorities delayed permits for the project and the government moved the factory's site, according to the account given to Al Jazeera. Permitting, site selection and regulatory clearance remain under Kyiv's control.
Chris Pool, a visiting fellow at the CSNS, spoke to Al Jazeera about the report. Western militaries supply the other half of the problem, in the experts' assessment. Strict rules for requirements (what a weapon must do), certification (formal approval that it is safe and works as stated) and procurement (the official process armies use to buy weapons) slow changes to systems tested in Ukraine.
The money problem is not new. Ukraine asked foreign partners to fund its defence production to fix cash shortages, a request documented as early as April 2024. Reuters
Drones as counterexample
Separate from those delayed projects is Ukraine's first-person-view (FPV) drone output. FPV drones carry a small camera, and the pilot steers while seeing what the drone sees. Ukraine reportedly invested $1 billion in drone warfare in 2023, 10 times what it spent in 2022. It produced one million FPV drones in 2024 and more than 3 million in 2025.
The 2026 estimate is 8 million FPV drones, or 16 for every 10 that Russia fields. The report connects that growth to spread-out manufacturing, fast design changes and lighter rules than those for artillery, armoured vehicles and other conventional munitions.
Demand for air defence continues. Ukraine's air force said its air defences had intercepted 254 of 285 Russian drones deployed until early evening in late September. Reuters
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on April 3, 2026, that Ukraine's frontline situation was the best in the last 10 months. On July 11, 2026, he said Ukrainian officials who allowed weapons warehouses to operate in a residential area would be held accountable.
The politics of supply
Partner policies still set limits on what joint production can draw upon. South Korea made no military aid pledge to Ukraine over transfer of North Koreans, and Seoul has limited assistance for Ukraine to non-lethal support despite pressure to send weapons. Reuters
Ukraine saw a path to getting Japanese arms after Tokyo eased export rules, and Japan has linked Ukraine's fate to its own security as it faces China's growing military power. The easing was reported in early May 2026. Reuters
Long-range strike remains politically bounded. Donald Trump said the United States has not approved Ukraine's use of long-range missiles. Vladimir Putin warned the West not to let Ukraine use its missiles to hit Russia, and said Ukrainian strikes on Russia with long-range weapons would need Western satellite, intelligence and military help. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Euronews that Russia should stop issuing nuclear threats. Euronews
The broader context here is a shift from aid to co-production as the organizing idea behind Western support. Kyiv offers testing and factory sites. Western firms offer money and design control. The CSNS account suggests the deal is slowing over process, not intent. The drone numbers sit beside the 22 percent stall rate. One shows what Ukrainian industry can build when entry costs are low and feedback is fast. The other measures the delay when approval cultures and permit systems intervene. If that gap stays, Ukraine could develop a two-speed factory base, with FPV output rising while heavier joint projects slip by months and years. For Western militaries, the question is whether testing in Ukraine will change how they buy weapons, or whether current buying rules will limit how much testing becomes usable supply.
