(Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that nearly 60% of weapons used by Ukraine’s military were domestically produced, already exceeding a target he set two months ago.
“During this war, Ukraine has reached the point where nearly 60% of the weapons we have, the weapons in the hands of our soldiers, are Ukrainian-made,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
“And these are powerful weapons, with many advanced features.”
Zelenskiy and other officials have long stressed boosting domestic production of weapons as a key element in ensuring Ukraine’s future defence.
In his address, he also pointed to a joint project to undertake weapons production in Denmark.
The president in July called on his reshuffled government to take measures to boost production of weapons made in Ukraine to more than 50%.
He said then that Ukrainian-made weapons made up about 50% of those used at the front and in other operations, higher than at any other time since independence from Soviet rule in 1991.
Ukraine has focused on drone production and on providing air defences to counter Russia’s intensive drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Officials have also stressed the development of interceptor drones as an effective and economical way of dealing with Russian aerial attacks.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr KozhukharEditing by Nick Zieminski)
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