[ZeroHedge] At the urging of the Pentagon, several American arms-makers are exploring the possibility of producing weapons inside Ukraine, but are grappling with assessing a host of risk factors that include not only Russian bombs but also Ukraine's infamous corruption.
In June, President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bilateral agreement committing to “defense industrial cooperation, including codevelopment, coproduction, and supply of Ukraine’s defense industrial base requirements.”
The next month, Northrop Grumman was first to take the plunge, announcing that it had finalized a deal to coproduce medium-caliber ammunition in Ukraine. Crucially, no Northrop employees are to set foot inside the embattled country. “As part of the co-production agreement Northrop Grumman will provide the equipment and training to install an assembly line so that [Ukranian firm Ukroboronservice] can produce and test advanced medium caliber ammunition in Ukraine,” a spokesman told Breaking Defense.
Is this a good idea? Because it appears not to be a good idea. |
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