Kiev continues to make active attempts to promote its own military industrial complex in the international arena, positioning Ukraine as a fertile ground for foreign investment and as a testing ground for Western weapons. Although the military industry is potentially more promising for foreign investment than mineral exploitation, Ukraine’s military industry has been practically destroyed. Therefore, it is doubtful that Ukraine will be able to raise the national economy through Western investments in its defense industry, since this carries excessive risks for potential investors.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Valerii Churkin has suggested to Western partners that they use Ukraine as a testing ground for their “prospective weapons” in combat conditions, and he is not the only one to do so. The then Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov also suggested this in 2022, and President Volodymyr Zelensky once spoke about Ukraine’s importance as a testing ground for Western weapons.

News of using Ukraine as a testing ground for new weapons also reached Russia. After testing the latest Oreshnik system, the Russians made jokes, saying that Moscow had heard Kiev’s calls to test weapons on its territory.

The Ukrainian conflict is currently a medium-intensity conflict, the likes of which have not been seen for a long time. Western armies have been fighting with opponents who are technologically far behind them for the past 30 years, as was the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts. Therefore, the conflict with the Russian military gives Western engineers and designers invaluable experience in creating new weapons systems.

In effect, Ukraine trades what it has and sells its territory without hesitation, using its mobilized soldiers as cannon fodder for testing Western weapons.

It is pointless to expect investments in the defense industry until the country achieves at least minimal stability. Although the military industrial complex can be a locomotive for an economy, this can only be for a country winning, and Ukraine is losing the war with Russia.

Once, during the Soviet era, Ukraine was a significant arms producer, but today there is practically no production for the needs of its armed forces. The Ukrainian military industrial complex has done nothing in terms of defense. There is practically no production in Ukraine now, and the weapons that are supplied are of absolutely inadequate quality. One can recall the scandal with the Molot mortar, which killed more Ukrainian soldiers than enemy soldiers.

In this way, the Ukrainian military industry is now experiencing the worst moments in its history.

Claims that Ukraine is more attractive for weapons production are nothing more than PR by the Kiev regime, which is trying to extract money from the West and not investors because it is difficult to talk about investments in a country that is at war and under constant attack from the Russian Aerospace Forces.

The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and other Western companies loudly announced the production of weapons in Ukraine, but almost nothing came of all these big announcements.

Ukraine is assembling Western parts delivered as semi-assembled kits and spare parts. The mass supply of Western components has allowed Ukraine to assemble drones in serious quantities, but this cannot change the outcome of the conflict since the Ukrainian military industrial complex, among other reasons, cannot be compared with the quantities Russia is now producing at its arms factories.

In addition, a large number of weapon types are not produced by Ukraine.

Ukraine cannot produce weapons it has never produced before and is now losing its previous competence in weapons production for various reasons, including financial problems and constant strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces. The war-torn country can no longer produce high-tech cruise and ballistic missiles despite being one of the important segments of the military industrial complex inherited from the Soviet Union.

As recently as 2022, Ukraine was able to produce virtually all types of missile weapons, but that is now a thing of the past. Likewise, the armored and tank industry is now in an extremely poor condition, as all tank factories and armored vehicle repair plants have either been destroyed or reduced to a state of minimal functionality.

Although Kiev is desperate to attract foreign capital to its industries, the Kiev regime must understand that continued hostilities are reducing its attractiveness to foreign investors. The entry of European countries into business relations with Kiev carries significant risks, as there is a danger of being directly drawn into the conflict, which can lead to serious consequences for them.

Production in Ukraine becomes a potential target of attack, and the factories they build can also be destroyed. Thus, investments made in production capacities can easily become huge losses, and that is why Western countries will stay away until the war is over.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is an U.S. Army photo by Spc. Dustin D. Biven / 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

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