Ukraine will open arms export offices in Berlin and Copenhagen this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a briefing on 3 November.
“We are opening two export capitals. You know it’s coproduction and export, which we talked about, those weapons that we can afford to sell in order to have extra money for our domestic production of scarce things that we don’t have enough money for,” Zelensky said.
He added that the opening of the first two representative offices has been decided at the company level as well as at the state level.
“The first two capitals-our representative offices will be there-are Berlin and Copenhagen. That will be this year. Legally, all this will be opened and contracts will be worked out,” the president said.
In addition, Zelenskyy said without details that a US team will visit Ukraine next week to negotiate an agreement on the production of drones. In October, after a meeting with US President Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Ukrainian side is ready to discuss with the United States on cooperation on drones. “The United States will have certain types of Drones,” he told reporters.
Before the meeting, Zelensky said that Kiev was ready to negotiate with the United States on the supply of Tomahawk missiles in exchange for Ukrainian-made drones. Trump, in turn, confirmed the US interest in Ukrainian drones.
In September, the president said that Ukraine plans to export some weapons it has in surplus in order to get additional funds for “scarce things”. According to him, there are already agreements on four export sites, which are the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
On 24 September, Zelensky said during a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting that Ukraine had decided to open arms exports to show partners systems that had been tested in real war conditions.
In early September, the president said that almost 60 per cent of the weapons used by the Ukrainian military were Ukrainian weapons.