Overview
- Ukrspecsystems formally opened its Mildenhall factory on Feb. 25 with a testing and training site in Elmsett under a £200 million investment creating up to 500 jobs and apprenticeships.
- The company said production will start with large-scale assembly of PD-2 and Shark systems for the Ukrainian military, with components work and R&D activity also based at the site.
- UK minister Luke Pollard and Ambassador Valerii Zaluzhnyi framed the project as strengthening industrial cooperation and building a shared European security base.
- Four Ukrainian manufacturers signed roughly €800 million in Build with Ukraine partnership deals with firms in Denmark, Finland and Latvia to scale unmanned systems and ground robotics for European supply chains.
- The UK is advancing domestic production of OCTOPUS interceptor drones, with plans to reach thousands per month for Ukraine as a lower-cost counter to Shahed-type attacks.