(Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that he was counting on his new incoming government to take measures to boost the proportion of weapons made at home to 50% within six months.
Zelenskiy has carried out a political reshuffle this week, nominating as his new prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko, the driving force behind a minerals deal with the United States. Outgoing prime minister Denys Shmyhal has been put forward as the new defence minister.
The nominations, which require parliamentary approval, came as diplomatic efforts to end the war with Russia, now in its fourth year, have stalled and as Ukraine seeks to revive its cash-strapped economy and build up a domestic arms industry.
Zelenskiy said he, Shmyhal and outgoing defence minister Rustem Umerov had decided at a meeting on Wednesday that the defence ministry would have “greater influence in the domain of arms production”.
“Ukrainian-made weapons now make up about 40% of those used at the front and in our operations,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “This is already significantly more than at any time in our country’s independence. The production volumes are truly large, but we need more.
“Our goal is to reach 50% Ukrainian-made weaponry within the first six months of the new government, by expanding our domestic production. I am confident this is achievable, though not easy.”
Zelenskiy has long stressed the importance of boosting domestic production of weapons and developing joint production of weaponry with Ukraine’s Western partners.
It has focused on drone production and on providing air defences to withstand intensifying Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Zelenskiy has in recent weeks stressed the importance of developing drone interceptors as a rational way of tackling swarms of drones.
Kyiv’s military authorities last week announced the allocation of $6.2 million for a drone interceptor program to defend the capital’s skies from Russian drones.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksander Kozhukhar, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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