Ukraine will open 10 weapons export centers across Europe in 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday, a move that formally transforms a country once dependent on foreign military aid into an active seller of battlefield-tested arms. The centers will be established in Baltic and Northern European countries, all of which have been key security partners for Kyiv since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

Zelensky made the announcement during a visit to Kyiv's Aviation Institute, where he also confirmed that production of Ukrainian-designed drones will begin on a German manufacturing line by mid-February. Similar production lines are already operational in the United Kingdom.

"Today, Europe's security is built on technology and drones," Zelensky said. "All of this will be based largely on Ukrainian technologies and Ukrainian specialists."

The announcement caps months of pressure from Ukraine's defense industry, which had been barred from exporting its products since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion nearly four years ago. Everything rolling off production lines was diverted to the war effort under martial law restrictions. That changed in October 2025, when Zelensky tasked the Defense Ministry with establishing a "controlled export" framework — a system under which surplus military equipment could be sold abroad, with proceeds reinvested into purchasing weapons Ukraine still needs for its front lines.

A defense industry that outgrew its buyer

The four-year war with Russia has produced a defense manufacturing boom inside Ukraine that few anticipated. Industry associations estimate the country now has more than a thousand arms and military equipment manufacturers, most of them small, privately owned companies founded after the 2022 invasion. In the drone sector alone, roughly 450 companies are now operating, with 40 to 50 of them considered top-tier producers.

Ukraine's military production now accounts for approximately 7 percent of the country's GDP, on par with agriculture. The Kyiv School of Economics Institute estimated the sector reached $10 billion in output in 2024 and projected growth to $15 billion in 2025. An estimated $30 to $35 billion in existing production capacity remains unused due to insufficient domestic demand.

That gap between what the industry can produce and what the government can afford to buy has been the core tension driving the export push. Ukraine's 2025 budget allocated 775 billion hryvnias — roughly $18 billion — for domestically produced drones, supplemented by funding from allied nations. But even that figure has not been enough to absorb the output of the country's rapidly expanding drone sector.

In May 2025, Ukrainian defense manufacturers published an open letter to Zelensky urging him to lift the export ban. "It is time to demonstrate that Ukraine is capable of being not only a party that receives international support, but also a full-fledged partner that exports security through cooperation, technology, and its own experience," the letter read.

Perry Boyle, co-founder of the investment firm MITS Capital, warned last year that without access to exports, Ukrainian defense innovators risked relocating to countries with fewer restrictions — weakening Kyiv's ability to build a sustainable domestic defense industry despite growing international demand for its technologies.

What Europe wants to buy

The interest from European buyers is not abstract. Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry, said international buyers are most drawn to drones and electronic warfare systems — the jammers that sever a drone's connection to its pilot on the ground.

The specific systems generating the strongest demand include seaborne drones, UAVs used to drop small munitions on targets, interceptor drones designed to take out other drones, and fiber-optic-guided drones whose control signals cannot be jammed. All of these were developed and refined under combat conditions — a selling point that no other country's defense industry can currently match.

The demand has practical roots. When Poland scrambled F-35 fighter jets and fired Patriot missiles to intercept Russian Gerbera drones worth under $10,000 each last September, European capitals confronted a basic math problem: their existing air defense models were economically unsustainable against cheap, mass-produced drone swarms. Ukraine, which now intercepts roughly 80 percent of nightly Russian drone barrages — increasingly using low-cost interceptor drones rather than expensive missiles — has exactly the technology Europe lacks.

The EU's planned Drone Wall, a continent-wide counter-drone shield set to launch in the first quarter of 2026, is expected to draw heavily on Ukrainian battlefield experience. Fifteen EU member states have expressed interest in purchasing Ukrainian weapons through the bloc's €150 billion SAFE defense fund.

Overseas production partnerships

The export centers are only part of the picture. Ukraine is simultaneously pushing to establish overseas manufacturing partnerships under the "Build with Ukraine" framework, announced by Zelensky in June 2025.

The most advanced of these partnerships is in Germany, where Quantum Frontline Industries — a joint venture between Germany's Quantum Systems and Ukraine's Frontline Robotics — plans to produce over 10,000 drones per year on a fully automated line. The initial units will be Linza bombers and Zoom reconnaissance drones, all bound for Ukraine's armed forces.

"Ukrainians have fundamentally changed the rules of drone warfare — now, together, we are changing the rules of defense-industrial production," said Sven Kruck, co-CEO of Quantum Systems.

In the UK, production lines based on Ukrainian designs are already running, including work on British-made Octopus interceptor drones. Denmark signed an agreement last October allowing Ukrainian arms makers to establish production facilities in the country. Lithuania is exploring production of Ukraine's Magura sea drones under a "1+1" arrangement — one unit for Lithuania, one for Ukraine.

French automaker Renault, together with defense firm Turgis Gaillard, will produce long-range drones for Ukraine's military. Germany is also set to manufacture TYTAN interceptor drones, which are already deployed in combat.

Zelensky described the initiatives as examples of Ukraine exporting technology and industrial know-how rather than simply shipping finished weapons systems.

The policy pivot

The shift from recipient to seller represents one of the most significant defense policy changes Ukraine has made since the start of the full-scale war. Under the controlled export framework, the government will prioritize supply to its own front-line brigades first, then to national arsenals, and only third to approved foreign buyers.

Serhii Sternenko, an adviser to Ukraine's defense minister, called the move overdue. "In 2025, the Russians earned about $15 billion from arms exports and invested it in new weapons," he said. "It was a big mistake to keep the export ban all this time. Our warriors and our country will only benefit."

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, noted that access to foreign revenue will allow Ukrainian arms makers to scale production and invest more in research and development — a cycle that could make Ukraine's defense sector self-sustaining even if allied funding fluctuates.

Zelensky framed 2026 as a turning point. "This year will be the year of investment in our technologies," he said. "First and foremost, drones. This is a big industry, a new industry. According to the finances that came into Ukraine during the war, this is the largest industry that exists in Ukraine."