Schwarzenberg stage | Battle-Tested: Deepening the Ukraine-Europe Defence Industrial Partnership

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's defence industry has undergone a transformation without precedent in modern European history — scaling from USD 1 billion in weapons production in 2022 to USD 15 billion in 2025. Yet even this dramatic growth fulfils only 43% of the sector's total production capacity. No other nation offers what Ukraine does: proximity to an active frontline combined with the ability to test, evaluate, and refine cutting-edge military solutions in real combat conditions. This extraordinarily compressed cycle of battlefield feedback and rapid iteration is producing high-tech, low-cost, and agile military capabilities that are redefining what modern defence readiness looks like. European companies that engage with Ukrainian producers gain not just a manufacturing partner, but a live laboratory for the future of warfare. The "Made with Ukraine" initiative has already demonstrated the concrete promise of this partnership, delivering Ukrainian-German and Ukrainian-British jointly produced drone systems, alongside a growing portfolio of joint programmes in heavy military equipment. - What role does innovation uptake have for the structure and capabilities of modern armed forces, and how should European militaries institutionalise the lessons emerging from Ukraine? - How do we use the full potential of Ukrainian-European defence partnerships to accelerate and scale up production to meet both Ukraine's immediate needs and Europe's longer-term rearmament goals? - How can European governments structure incentives to encourage their domestic defence companies to invest in partnerships with Ukrainian producers at scale? - How do we build the trust, interoperability standards, and intellectual property frameworks necessary to sustain long-term Ukrainian-European co-development rather than one-off procurement deals? Speakers: Davyd Aloian, Deputy Secretary, National Security & Defence Council, Ukraine Arnaud Danjean, Senior Research Associate, Wilfried Martens Centre; Former MEP Ihor Fedirko, CEO, Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry Bastien Mancini, CEO, Delair Martin Vaľovský, Founding Partner, Baryon Investment Fund Led by: Martin Sklenár, Former Minister of Defence, Slovakia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GLOBSECforum X: https://x.com/GLOBSEC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10637133/admin/dashboard/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globsecthinktank/ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/globsec.bsky.social