Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Alexander Kamyshin reported on the specific agreements reached during the EU-Ukraine Defence Industries Forum, or DFNC1: EU Edition. The event took place on 6 May in Brussels.

The forum was dedicated to strengthening defence industrial cooperation between the EU and Ukraine. More than 400 representatives of governments, defence companies from the EU and Ukraine, industry associations, key partner countries and organisations, as well as EU institutions gathered. In particular, representatives of 39 Ukrainian defence companies and 103 European companies were present.

According to Minister Alexander Kamyshin, as a result of the talks, the parties:

1. Confirmed the possibility of using the European Peace Facility. EU member states will purchase weapons for the Ukrainian Defence Forces from Ukrainian manufacturers. Money from the fund will be used to compensate for these costs.

The EPF is an effective tool that has already been successfully used to compensate EU member states for the costs of supplying their own weapons to Ukraine. 

2. We discussed in detail the mechanism of using the proceeds from frozen Russian assets and the same Peace Fund to finance the Ukrainian defence industry directly or through any of the EU member states. This decision is not yet final, but if approved, this money could be quickly used to purchase Ukrainian weapons.

3. We discussed concrete steps to implement the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP). This will allow Ukraine to participate in all EU defence programmes. However, the plan still needs to be approved and detailed.

4. The parties agreed to open a Defence Innovation Office in Kyiv. The reasons for this decision are the significant interest of the European defence industry in partnership with Ukrainian colleagues and Ukraine's need for innovative developments. The office will become a one-stop shop for European start-ups to respond to Ukraine's urgent needs and will lay the groundwork for deeper strategic cooperation in research and development between Ukraine and the EU.

"The short-term solution we offer our partners is the “ZBROYARI: Manufacturing Freedom". This is a global collection of partner countries for Ukrainian weapons for our army. This is a quick solution to the problem of insufficient funding for production. According to our estimates, the gap between the production capacity of Ukrainian arms manufacturers and the budget available in the country is $10 billion. We invite our partners to help us close this gap with direct contracts. We already have the first donations from Denmark and Canada. We invite other countries to join the initiative," said Alexander Kamyshin.

In addition, according to the Minister, the forum has become a platform for discussing not only intergovernmental agreements but also specific ways of cooperation between business representatives.  Hundreds of bilateral meetings were held on the sidelines of the forum.