The largest German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall is continuing its plans to enter the Ukrainian market and to support this country in the ongoing fight against the Russian army. And not only that – the company will start local production of its armored vehicles in Ukraine in 2024.
Rheinmetall will manufacture Fuchs armored vehicles in Ukraine. Associative photo. Image credit: Dirk Vorderstraße – Transportpanzer Fuchs (TPz Fuchs) der Bundeswehr (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia
The largest German arms manufacturer intends to start assembling armored vehicles in Ukraine at the end of the summer of 2024. The news was announced by Armin Pappergeris, director of the concern, who spoke about this in an interview with WirtschaftsWoche.
According to him, the company plans to assemble two types of equipment in Ukraine: armored vehicles “Fuchs” and armored vehicles “Lynx“. The production of armored vehicles will start at the end of summer next year. Meanwhile, the production line of infantry fighting vehicles will start operating a bit later, in 2025.
The director of Rheinmetall added that the armored vehicles of the German concern are already being serviced in Ukraine – Ukrainian specialists have completed the necessary training in Germany.
The concern does not plan to build new factories in Ukraine. The production will be carried out using existing facilities, which, according to Papperger, are relatively well protected from Russian missile attacks.
Rheinmetall currently stands as Ukraine’s primary defense industry partner, having secured orders totaling approximately 900 million euros in 2022. This figure escalated to around two and a half billion euros in 2023.
Papperger anticipates a further increase in the coming year. The production of Lynx is already in progress in Hungary.
Written by Alius Noreika