With around 800 systems in front deployment or under contract, as well as significant ammunition deliveries, the Franco-German defence group KNDS ranks among the most important industrial partners of the Ukrainian land forces. The company has now opened a subsidiary in Kyiv. Under the name KNDS Ukraine LLC, it will support the cooperation between Ukrainian government institutions, the Ukrainian armaments industry and KNDS.
The purpose of establishing KNDS Ukraine is, among other goals, to empower the Ukrainian industry to carry out maintenance, repair and overhaul work on KNDS systems – among them the Leopard 1 and 2 main battle tanks, the CAESAR artillery gun, the AMX10 RC, the PzH 2000 armoured howitzer and the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun tank –, thus significantly increasing the availability of the systems for combat. At the same time, KNDS and the Ukrainian industry intend to jointly manufacture 155 mm artillery ammunition in Ukraine and produce spare parts using leading-edge manufacturing technologies.
The founding of KNDS Ukraine LLC is based on a corresponding Franco-German government initiative, whose baselines were presented on 22 March 2024 by Ministers of Defence Sebastien Lecornu and Boris Pistorius in Berlin.
