Slovakia to Continue Selling Arms to Ukraine for Economic Growth

Despite Slovakia's stance against military aid to Ukraine, the government hopes that rebuilding its own industry can contribute to economic growth, Bloomberg writes.

 ‘Our political declaration says that we will not provide free military aid to Ukraine, because by doing so we will be supporting the conflict,’ Robert Kalinak, 53, the defence minister and close ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, said in an interview. 

‘But we will not limit defence production if it supports the gross domestic product, because by doing so, I am harming Slovakia's interests,’ he added.   

Slovakia's Defence Minister insists on a significant increase in the production of its own ammunition, so that Slovak-made shells end up in Ukraine.

According to the minister, this year, the defence industry should contribute about 2% to the country's economic growth. This is a chance to improve Slovakia's economy and public finances, Kalinak said.

However, the government does not have full control over where the shells end up, as the minister said buyers decide what to do with the ammunition they buy.

Kalinak denied that the sale of Slovak-made shells to Ukraine, either directly or through third parties, contradicts the government's position, which opposes military aid to Kyiv.

 ‘From a historical point of view, this is the way I really want to go,’ he said in Dubnica nad Váhom, a city in western Slovakia that is home to an ammunition and weapons plant. ‘The defence industry has a high added value.’

Dubnica nad Váhom, where Kalinak spoke on Thursday, is one of the few towns around Slovakia that once housed huge munitions factories that supplied the Warsaw Pact armies.

The collapse of the Soviet-led military alliance nearly wiped out the largest arms producers in eastern Czechoslovakia, and in the early 1990s production fell by 90%, leaving tens of thousands of people out of work and sprawling abandoned arms factories as monuments to the sector's demise.

However, Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, with which Slovakia shares a 97-kilometre (60-mile) border, revived the needs of the arms industry and prompted Slovak companies to try to increase production.

Slovakia now aims to increase its production of large-calibre ammunition to 200,000 next year from 125,000 expected this year.