China still powers Ukraine's defense supply chain: What are the alternatives?
Photo: China remains a key supplier to the Ukrainian defense industry (Getty Images)
China remains a key player in global supply chains, including for Ukraine’s defense industry, according to the RBC-Ukraine article.
At the same time, recent years have seen a gradual geographic shift. Part of procurement is moving to the European Union, the United States, Taiwan, and South Korea.
The role of supplier diversification is also gradually increasing, with a single component having several alternatives. For a number of reasons, Ukrainian manufacturers are building hybrid supply chains to avoid critical dependence on a single market. Yet, Chinese components are often the cheapest.
Since China remains the most accessible market in terms of scale and speed, the goal is not its complete replacement but rather reducing critical dependence on it.
"It is important to honestly acknowledge that Ukraine is not the only country dependent on Chinese components. China long ago ceased to be merely a factory of cheap goods. Today, it is the world's key manufacturing giant," BlueBird Tech emphasized.
A significant share of the world's manufacturing depends on China. For Ukraine, however, this dependence has become not an economic risk but a factor of battlefield resilience.
XTI Engineering, however, notes that its main partners are European manufacturers, as they have already proven their reliability through long-term operation.
The company produces complex engineering equipment in small batches rather than mass-market products, making it easier to plan procurement and maintain the necessary stock of components.
Weapons production in Ukraine
Ukraine's defense sector is actively expanding international cooperation. Ukraine and Europe are launching joint drone production abroad.
The projects are being developed in cooperation with Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, Germany, and other countries under a model in which the Ukrainian side shares combat experience and technologies, while European partners provide funding and production capacity.
Ukraine is also increasing the pace of domestic missile production. The private defense sector is already producing three Flamingo missiles per day, but production of Flamingo missiles will increase sharply after enterprises complete the full transition to domestically developed engines.
