Keynote speech by Commissioner Kubilius at NATO-Ukraine Defence Innovators Forum

Keynote speech by Commissioner Kubilius at NATO-Ukraine Defence Innovators Forum

Dear all,

I will not surprise you by making the statement, that the Ukrainian army is the best in Europe and, perhaps, in the world.

Because I am just repeating what some prominent global leaders recently have said.

I would like to remind you, that US State Secretary Marco Rubio stated: the Ukrainian military forces are the strongest and most powerful in Europe.

And the President of Finland Alexander Stubb also stated that: “there is no army in Europe or the United States, by the way, capable of conducting a modern war the way Ukraine is doing”.

I believe those people and their statements.

If we want to achieve that our armies in Europe would be as good as the Ukrainian army, we, both in NATO and in EU, need to answer the question : why is the Ukrainian army the best?

My answer: not only because they have the bravest soldiers and smartest commanders, but also because their defence industry is the best and most innovative.

Why is the Ukrainian defence industry the most innovative?

I got the answer last year, when I had informal discussions with prominent Ukrainian leaders of politics and industry, who created the “drone army” in 2023.

And now they are leading the whole defence of Ukraine. During our conversation, they made a clear comment:

“If we would have listened to the Ukrainian generals from the very beginning of the full scale invasion, we would not have been able to create the drone army”.

There was no military demand for drones and for innovative defence at the very beginning of the war.

Only after some time, in Ukraine, innovative defence supply managed to transform military demand. Now the demand for innovations from the military and political defence leadership of Ukraine leads the transformations in supply.

And that is, in my opinion, the formula of Ukraine's success in defence.

The innovative supply of the “Brave 1” cluster of start-ups and producers of drones influenced and finally defined the demand of the Ukrainian military. Because military leaders, influenced by innovative defence industry, changed their war doctrine.

Other defence industries in Ukraine followed with dynamic innovations. Ukraine defence production during more than 4 years of war grew more than 50 times: from 1 billion euro of production in 2022 up to 50 billion euro of production in 2025. It is the level of production that Germany or France is able to produce per year.

In my view, that was and is the biggest achievement and input of President Zelenskyy, generals Zaluzhnyj and Syrskij, that they understood that an innovative supply is needed for modern warfare. And they changed the military demand for what to procure from Ukraine's defence industry.

And history will write volumes about the unique role of Vice Minister Serhii Boyev, who is here today, and of Mykhailo Fedorov, who was Digital minister at the beginning of the war and created the “Brave 1” def tech cluster and Drone Army, and now he is Defence Minister of Ukraine. And we see how Ukraine is starting to prevail, after Michailo became Defence Minister.

The famous American general John Pershing, who was American Chief of Staff and was leading American troops in Europe during the First World War made the famous conclusion: “battles are won by infantry, wars are won by logistics”. Which means also by timely supply of what industry is producing.

Today, having in mind the Ukrainian experience we can conclude: Battles are won by drones, wars are won by defence innovation and innovative defence industry, able to scale up “good enough” production.

In contrast to Ukraine, we can look at the European situation - we still lack defence innovation and Ukrainian dynamism in our defence industry. And we lack scale in production. Russia is still quite heavily outproducing us. This is a real danger as we are creating temptation for Putin.

Why are we learning the lessons from Ukraine so slowly?

In Europe demand for defence production is still very heavily influenced and defined by our big, traditional primes. Who are producing traditional, heavy, some times technologically very advanced, “haute couture” production, expensive and impossible to ramp-up.

According to publicly availabla data, in Europe, up to 80% of what primes are producing is procured by their national governments and national militaries, up to 80% in defence is procured through direct awards (using the “security” exemption of TFEU Art.346) without a public competitive tender.

That is clear evidence, that there is no single defence market in Europe. There are 27 small markets, no possibilities for European-wide competition, and as a consequence no space for start-ups and SME's to mushroom, and no space for innovations.

You don't need to read the famous Mario Draghi or Enrico Letta reports in order to understand, that without Single Defence Market and competitive procurement we shall never have proper space for start-ups and SME's in defence to grow, to innovate and to transform the supply, and in the end to transform the war doctrines of our countries.

So, for European and Ukrainian innovators, there is a broader agenda in Europe than just to learn from each other how to produce the most modern drones.

There is a broader challenge for all of us: how to create in Europe a proper space for innovative dynamic defence industry. Such a dynamic space can be born only if a Single Defence Market will be created. With single market rules, harmonized procurement and certification rules, and without artificial national protectionism, which kills first of all growth possibilities for start-ups and SME's and possibilities for innovation in defence

Space for innovations will not be created without a Single Defence Market and also without military demand for supply of innovative, cost effective and scalable defence products. Such a demand for innovative defence products is directly related to the modernization of our war doctrines.

That is the most important lesson, which Ukraine is teaching us: modern war doctrines, innovative military demand, innovative defence industry and competitive single defence market are indivisible elements of the same formula of military success in the battlefield.

The question is - are we learning quickly enough?

Until last year we, as Europeans, mainly were looking how to help and support Ukraine's defence. And we continue to do so. A very important priority for us now is to successfully implement the Ukraine Support Loan, with 60 billion euro devoted to support the defence of Ukraine.

But times are changing. More and more we are looking how Ukraine can help and assist the development of European defence industry and of our defence capabilities.

That demands smart synergy and integration between our defence industries and our defence policies.

We are creating instruments for such a synergy: we started with Brave Tech EU last year, in order to create possibilities for our start-ups to work together with Ukrainian partners on the tasks, related directly to the front line;

inspired by how Ukraine is supporting defence innovation we proposed the AGILE programme for the transformation of our defence industry;

after the EDIP programme became operational from the beginning of this year, we have a new programme: the Ukraine Support Instrument to support our industrial integration;

and with EDIP we have also possibilities to develop important pan-European EDPCI projects, like the Eastern Flank Watch, Drone Defence Initiative or Air Defence Shield, where Ukraine can participate as equal partner.

But the best way for such a synergy is Ukraine's integration into European Union.

We need Ukrainian battle tested military forces and defence industry to strengthen our defence.

It would be difficult to understand if we in Europe would not take it as our vital interest to integrate the best European, or even global, military force of Ukraine into our European defence architecture.

While NATO membership for Ukraine is still not agreed, while EU Membership will take, maybe, a longer period of time, we need to push for Ukraine's membership of the European Defence Union.

That is why the creation of a European Defence Union cannot be postponed.

The urgency to do so is high.

There can be no delay for a European Defence Union.

And that is why defence industries, especially innovative industries from both sides - Ukraine and the European Union - should be the strongest promoters of such an integration path, convincing national governments that this a good “business case”.

And - Slava Ukrainy!