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← The Ukraine-Russia War: A Grinding Test of Industrial Might

Weapons Procurement & Supply Lines

Supply is starting to run both ways. Germany is preparing to buy a test batch of Ukrainian-designed Bars jet-powered missiles for its own army, with trials planned for early 2027; nothing is signed. A German–Ukrainian venture has already delivered its first German-built Bars to Ukraine. Ukrainian makers may now bid for NATO procurement-agency tenders, though none has won one, and at home parliament voted to send the 20–30% arms-export fee to the army.

Europe’s money is being sized rather than paid. The EU expects to cover about two-thirds of the €70 billion Ukraine lacks for 2027, roughly €46.7 billion, and to decide how in late November. The Peace Facility refunded governments €4.7 billion for weapons they had already sent, and Brussels reopened €21.3 billion of unclaimed defence loans for joint buying with Ukraine. The EU loan’s defence side has paid nothing new since October 14.

New national pledges came in. The Netherlands added €500 million for air defence and drones. Britain pledged £10 billion, of which £500 million is military money for this winter. Poland will send two MiG-29s, one of them airworthy, in a package of about €50 million, after denying it had halted aid.

New

10

in all two topics

The whole story2 chapters
The state of it — as of October 29, 2026

$B / month

Monthly Requirement
Monthly Procurement
Shortfall
Estimated Averages (H1/H2 & Current)
Procurement has climbed since 2022 but has never closed the gap: Ukraine still runs a $1.9B monthly shortfall against its assessed requirement.
$1.9bn
short of the weapons needed, every month

In this story

All two updated Oct 29

· 4 new

How Europe Pays

The EU now expects to pay about two-thirds of the €70 billion Ukraine lacks for 2027. European Council President António Costa said on October 23 that the EU “normally” covers that share — about €46.7 billion — and that leaders should decide at their November 26–27 summit, or in December failing that. A new loan funded by joint EU borrowing is the favourite; Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Bulgaria will stay out without blocking it. Britain pledged £10 billion on October 28, but only £500 million is military money for this winter; £3 billion is export finance Kyiv says will buy weapons, and the rest is economic aid.

Two older channels moved. On October 26 the Council adopted €4.9 billion of European Peace Facility decisions, €4.7 billion of it refunding governments for weapons already sent, bringing the facility’s Ukraine total to €10.8 billion. On October 29 the Commission reopened €21.3 billion of unclaimed SAFE defence loans and urged capitals to spend them jointly with Ukraine; it cannot require them to. The Support Loan’s defence side has paid nothing new since October 14, leaving €12.54 billion of this year’s €28.3 billion still to come.

Continue: How Europe Pays →
€12.54bn
of the €28.3bn planned for Ukraine’s arms industry in 2026 still unpaid
≈€46.7bn of €70bn
Ukraine’s 2027 shortfall the EU expects to cover; instrument still undecided
€62bn of €70bn
pledged at NATO’s Ankara summit provided, by Ukraine’s own count

· 4 new

Ukraine's Defence Industry

Germany is preparing to buy Ukrainian-designed Bars jet-powered missiles for its own army. If signed, it would be the first Ukrainian strike weapon fielded by the Bundeswehr. The FT reported on October 26 that a test-batch deal is expected within weeks, for trials in early 2027, and a German official confirmed talks to the Kyiv Independent. The same reports say a German–Ukrainian venture in Germany has delivered its first German-funded batch of Bars to Ukraine, three months after the July co-production deal. Germany has put a Flamingo purchase on hold.

The routes out are opening faster than the trade. Ukrainian makers may now bid for tenders run by NATO’s procurement agency, NSPA; none has yet won one. The Pentagon delayed its bomber-drone contest, in which about half the entrants are Ukrainian; the firms blame Ukrainian export approvals and US visa waits. At home, parliament voted in first reading to pay the 20–30% arms-export fee into a fund for weapons and soldiers’ pay. The industry council says exports have effectively not started and no official total has been published.

Continue: Ukraine's Defence Industry →
3.7×
drones delivered to Ukraine’s state buyer this year against last, on the ministry’s count
2,000
Ukrainian strike drones delivered to the US military, the first cleared for export there
10
small private arms-export contracts in the first year after exports reopened

Today

All new

Poland Will Send Two MiG-29s, One of Them Able to Fly

Poland will transfer two MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine “in the near future”, a defence ministry official, Dariusz Łukowski, told Rzeczpospolita on October 29. One is past its service life and good only for spare parts; the other can fly. They come in a new package of about €50 million that the paper says also holds 155mm and 152mm shells, F-16 cannon rounds and Piorun missiles; the ministry would not confirm the contents. In December 2025 Poland spoke of sending six to eight of its fourteen MiG-29s. Nothing ties this package to the one reported halted on October 21.

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The Netherlands Adds €500 Million for Air Defence and Drones

Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten announced a further €500 million of military aid for Ukraine on October 28, at a joint press conference with Zelensky. The package covers air defence systems and drones. No quantities, specific systems or delivery dates were given, so it stands at the pledge stage. A separate €1.2 billion Dutch package announced in Kyiv the same day is non-military: it sets out how money already promised for energy, water and business will be spent in 2027–29.

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Earlier this month

4

Poland Is Reported to Have Halted an Arms Package. Warsaw Says It Has Not.

An unnamed source in Ukraine’s government told Yevropeiska Pravda on October 21 that Poland had suspended delivery of a large military aid package after the Lviv regional council voted, on October 20, to declare 2027 a year honouring Roman Shukhevych and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Poland’s defence minister had called that vote unacceptable. RBC-Ukraine carried the same words, so it is one report. That evening the Polish defence ministry’s spokesman, Janusz Sejmej, told Fakt: “This is false information.” No source has given the package’s size, contents or value, and neither a halt nor a delivery has been confirmed.

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Slovakia’s Ammunition Exports More Than Doubled in 2025

Slovak exports of military ammunition, parts and components reached €2.1 billion in 2025, up 138.6% on the year before, Le Monde reported on October 20. The figure covers every buyer, not Ukraine alone, and no breakdown by customer was given. Le Monde describes a shell plant being built at Snina, in eastern Slovakia, as part of Europe’s production of 155mm rounds, the calibre Ukraine’s artillery fires most. Hromadske, relaying the report, says Slovak shells reach Ukraine through the Czech-led ammunition initiative and through commercial contracts. It is an export total, not a count of rounds delivered to Ukraine.

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Britain Sends More Storm Shadows, and Will Not Say How Many

Britain is sending Ukraine more Storm Shadow cruise missiles, Bloomberg reported on October 15, citing people familiar with the matter, after Zelensky and Prime Minister Andy Burnham discussed resupply in London the day before. No quantity was given and the UK government declined to comment; it has never said how many it has supplied. The report is a single chain, relayed by Ukrainska Pravda and the Kyiv Post, and it describes a transfer, not a confirmed delivery.

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They gave them massive amount of Patriots, Tomahawks, everything

— Donald Trump Mixed

Checked: mixed

Mixed. The United States did supply Ukraine with Patriot systems and interceptors under the previous administration. No transfer of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine has ever been confirmed: Kyiv asked for them, and no delivery has been made public (Hromadske).

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This quarter

8

Three Ways to Say Yes at the Contact Group

At the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Kyiv, Germany said it was urgently sending part of its Patriot PAC-2 stockpile and pressed others to check their own — an announced transfer, no arrival confirmed. Britain committed £100 million to buy American equipment including Patriot interceptors, ammunition and drones — committed, not spent. And von der Leyen said Ukraine could put the next €3.2 billion disbursement from the EU support loan towards Patriot — the only one of the three that moves money. No source says whether that €3.2 billion comes from the €6.1 billion approved in August.

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Our reading

One Number, Two Meanings: $27 Billion for Drones, or for Everything

The Guardian reported Ukraine’s defence minister describing a $27 billion shortfall in financing for drone supplies. Interfax-Ukraine, carrying his words in Ukrainian, quotes him saying something wider: that the overall defence budget deficit is €23 billion, or $27 billion, and that covering it would fund drone procurement through this year and into early next. The figure is identical. What it counts is not. A drone-specific shortfall and a whole-budget deficit are different claims about how much of Ukraine’s war the money is missing, and only one of them is what the minister said.

Compared

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Germany’s New Howitzer Is Reported in Ukraine, Four Years After It Was Promised

A German tracker of military aid reported on September 5 that the RCH 155 — a wheeled howitzer that can fire on the move — has been delivered to Ukrainian forces. It rests on one source the tracker describes as independent of both government and industry. Neither Berlin nor Kyiv has confirmed it, no count or arrival date is given, and no photograph of the gun in Ukraine has been published. Germany is paying €890 million for 54, in three batches of 18. The first batch was pledged in September 2022, and four announced delivery dates passed before this one.

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North Korea's Missile Account With Russia, as Ukraine's Spies Read It

Ukraine's military intelligence put numbers on Pyongyang's arms supply to Moscow: at least 150 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles delivered between late 2023 and August 2025, another 120 promised and 40 of those arrived. Two of the new batch are assessed to have been used in the 30 July strike on Radushne that killed at least four children from one family. About 90 North Korean personnel have gone to Voronezh to help with launches, and ten heavy cargo flights have landed at the airfield nearby. Newer variants are said to reach 800 kilometres while still missing by 15 to 19.

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$18 Billion Landed in Three Months — and the Gap Reopens in 2027

For once the question of what was paid, rather than promised, has an answer. The KSE Institute’s Ukraine Financial Support Tracker reports $18 billion of external financing received in the second quarter of 2026 — more than three-quarters of the $23.5 billion that arrived across the whole first half. These are disbursements, and they cover the state as well as the war: $4.3 billion in loans, $9.2 billion in grants, and $4.5 billion of military support under the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan, which became operational on 25 June and may carry €45 billion this year. Older instruments are closing behind it — the ERA loan against frozen Russian assets is about 98 per cent delivered. The forecast is where it turns: $76 billion this year, $61.4 billion next, and a residual $19.5 billion gap in 2027. The named risk is administrative, not Russian: a growing backlog of unmet Ukraine Facility reform indicators.

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North Korea Sends Russia a Missile Unit, and Its Ballistic Missiles Return to Ukrainian Skies

A Ukrainian military-intelligence official said North Korea had begun deploying a dedicated missile unit of about 90 personnel to Russia's Voronezh region, potentially armed with up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for use against Ukraine; the United States was aware of the deployment. Roughly 40 North Korean missiles had already been handed over, at least two of them fired at Ukraine the previous week in a deadly strike — the return of Pyongyang's KN-23/KN-24 ballistic missiles to the war after a lull. The move deepens a supply relationship that already underpins Russia's war effort from the demand side of Ukraine's air-defence problem: North Korea has delivered some 4 million artillery shells since mid-2023 and about 148 ballistic missiles by early 2025, and by Ukrainian and independent assessments now provides close to half the ammunition Russia expends on parts of the front. Every additional launcher and missile widens the gap this desk tracks between Russia's roughly 120-a-month domestic ballistic-missile output, now augmented from abroad, and Ukraine's near-empty interceptor stock.

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Ukraine Buys $280M of ATACMS and Rocket Launchers From Turkey's US-Made Surplus

The US State Department notified Congress on 6 August of a proposed ~$280 million transfer to Ukraine of US-origin weapons from Turkey’s stocks: 70 M39 ATACMS (the ~165 km Block I), 12 tracked M270 launchers, 2,524 M26 227 mm cluster rockets and 47,000 M509A1 203 mm cluster shells. Washington’s consent is required for the re-export — a NATO ally offloading ageing US kit as direct American aid winds down. Human Rights Watch urged Congress on 11–12 August to block it, putting the deal at $256 million and the payload at over 10 million submunitions with a high dud rate. The 15-day objection period lapsed without a joint resolution, authorising the transfer; Ukraine’s ambassador to Ankara said in late August that negotiations continued and nothing had shipped. Cumhuriyet reported the deal surfaced only through a Turkish filing error. A cleared transfer, not a delivery.

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Long-Range Artillery Shells Bound for Ukraine

Ukraine expects deliveries of 155mm long-range laser-guided artillery shells by the end of the summer, funded by two tranches: roughly $540 million from Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Spain, and €300 million from another European country for about 50,000 shells. The guided munitions are designed to extend the effective firing range beyond the standard 30-kilometre front-line zone, allowing Ukrainian batteries to engage Russian rear positions and supply routes while maintaining standoff distance.

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Earlier this year

12

The Rafale Acquisition & Paris Summit

During the 'Coalition of the Willing' summit in Paris, Ukraine signs an agreement to acquire 16 Dassault Rafale fighters, signaling a massive leap in aerospace capabilities and a permanent pivot away from Soviet platforms.

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Project Brakestop: The ITAR-Free Deep Strike

The UK Ministry of Defence successfully tests 'Project Brakestop'—low-cost, ground-launched deep-strike systems with a 500km range designed to be entirely free of US ITAR components and navigation data, granting Europe a sovereign strike capability. Downing Street said on 27 July 2026 that the 'Stone Cloak' drone-jamming technology deployed in Ukraine will be built into Brakestop and the UK's next generation of long-range weapons.

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Earlier

13

First Deep Strike with ATACMS

Following a pivotal US policy reversal, Ukrainian forces launch their first long-range strike into undisputed Russian territory, hitting a military arsenal in Bryansk with a 300-kilometer range ATACMS missile.

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