Ukraine’s firms broke up production; Europe must follow

As Russia’s drone and missile attacks hit factories across Ukraine—including facilities used by U.S. firms—Ukrainian defense makers have moved toward “distributed manufacturing,” splitting production across many sites and often keeping stock elsewhere. A Ukrai

For years, defense manufacturing has been built around one idea: scale up in a big place. Ukraine’s defense sector has spent this war proving the opposite can keep weapons alive.

Russia’s drone and missile attacks are so widespread that weapons companies working in Ukraine “typically can’t afford to work in large factories and warehouses that are more easily detected and struck.” Factories in Ukraine—including those of US firms—have been hit. The result has been a shift: many companies split their sites up and even go underground. a move that makes producing weaponry harder and more expensive. but also reduces the chances of a single strike taking out everything.

Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Business Insider that the threat Russia poses to Europe is so direct that some allies need to copy the approach. “Some countries definitely should,” he said.

That “split it up” model is now being described as standard practice by Ukrainian defense manufacturers—and, increasingly, as a problem Europe can no longer postpone.

Distributed manufacturing becomes the norm

The CEO of Ukrainian-Estonian technology and defense company and ground drone maker Ark Robotics—who asked to go by the pseudonym Achi out of concern for his safety—said his company had to adopt distributed manufacturing despite its drawbacks.

“We call distributed manufacturing: Breaking things up so that different components are made at different sites,” Achi said. “It’s necessary. but it’s not ideal.” He added: “We try to avoid building a gigafactory.” He said he would “love that to be honest. ” because a huge factory with everything inside is “literally the best way to do it.”.

But this war has flipped the incentives. Achi said the goal is to avoid creating a target “big enough” to draw attention or disclose where operations are happening.

Ark Robotics is headquartered in Estonia and has its R&D center in Kyiv. The company has “more than 50 engineers and specialists across Europe.” Its teams in Ukraine design communication software and test ground drones. including near the front lines. Engineers in Estonia test and design electronics and electrical systems for drones and robots.

Achi said Ark Robotics is branching out production into other parts of Europe due to “just insane amounts of destruction” in Ukraine. That destruction has hit supply chains and personnel safety at the same time. “Attacks mean he worries about his staff. too. ” the reporting described. with Achi saying: “It’s really hard to even sleep with that. You know that you have tens of people working there constantly under danger. and you don’t know when the strike is coming.”.

Even the risk isn’t only about buildings. A NATO official confirmed that Russia plotted to kill Achi’s counterpart: the CEO of the leading German arms maker Rheinmetall, which has produced weapons for Ukraine.

Achi acknowledged that some European countries are far safer from Russian missiles because attacking them could spark a much wider war that Russia, at least for now, is not instigating. But he argued that readiness for a potential future war means defense manufacturers need to prepare now.

“We believe one of the key lessons from Ukraine is that resilience cannot depend on a single site, a single supplier, or a single geography,” he said. “Modern defense requires distributed capabilities that can continue operating under pressure.”

Enduring a strike means designing for loss

Ark Robotics isn’t alone in describing dispersion as survival engineering.

Mykyta Rozhkov, the chief business development officer at Ukrainian drone and weapons maker Frontline Robotics, said European companies “absolutely” need to start spreading things out. He said some European firms have asked his company for advice on changing their manufacturing.

Frontline Robotics has adapted so it “can endure the loss of any site.” Rozhkov said any loss is still “painful,” but the company can survive. He described the setup as being “as easy as possible to move.”

That adaptability comes with trade-offs. The work is constantly moving parts, and keeping it together requires a “new approach.” Frontline Robotics makes aerial drones and autonomous remote weapon turrets. The company has more than 400 employees, and its gear is used by more than 60 Ukrainian units.

In Ukraine, it operates teams of engineers, specialists, drone instructors, and warehouse staff in multiple locations. It is also starting to produce in Germany with the German company Quantum Systems, forming a joint venture called Quantum Frontline Industries.

The company’s shift isn’t limited to its own production line. Estonian company Krattworks, which makes drones used by Ukraine, also agreed to the broader dispersal approach.

Karmo Saar, the head of sales at Krattworks, told Business Insider that in a war with Russia, if European companies don’t disperse more, “I think we’re going to be punished.”

He said some of Ukraine’s major drone makers operate across more than 15 sites, even though working from a single large facility would be “a lot more economical, cheaper, and better.”

Smaller chunks, and keeping stock out of harm’s way

Other Ukrainian defense firms have described splitting facilities in even more granular ways.

Misha Rudominski, the CEO of Himera, a secure communications systems firm, said his company has split its manufacturing across multiple sites and keeps its stock in another location to avoid becoming a big target that’s “worth it” for Russia to hit.

Rudominski said many companies split production into “5, 10, 15 locations” that often only have a few dozen people at each. He added that bigger options are rare unless they are underground.

The geography problem for Europe

For Europe, the idea sounds simple until it meets maps.

Aloian said a challenge for much of Europe doing this is the smaller size of many nations compared to Ukraine. Some European countries that border Russia and feel most threatened, such as the Baltic states, are among the continent’s smallest.

He said those countries lack the “strategic depth” Ukraine has, with fewer regions and space to truly spread out and hide manufacturing. His solution was that some could spread out manufacturing across multiple countries to solve this.

Beyond factories: what Western militaries are being pushed to learn

The warning to defense companies comes as Western officials, Ukrainian officials, and analysts say the air threat has grown enough to force a broader shift—one that goes beyond plants and warehouses.

After decades of relying on large air operations centers to plan aerial missions, Sir John Stringer, NATO’s deputy supreme allied commander Europe, told Business Insider that Ukraine shows that such reliance is “no longer viable.”

He said the change makes operations more difficult, but it also means there are fewer big targets that could be taken out in devastating blows.

Taras Berezovets, the head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, said the West must learn from Ukraine that drone units and command centers must be mobile or underground because they are priority targets.

Western allies are also studying Ukraine’s flexible strategy of dispersing its aircraft and landing at different bases than they launch from—tactics that, as described in the reporting, have kept the smaller air force from being wiped out.

Where Europe stands now

Across Ukraine’s defense ecosystem, the logic is consistent: when attacks are widespread, resilience can’t be built around one place. Companies spread their work across dozens of sites to avoid becoming a single visible point. And where that is hard, they keep stock elsewhere and look for underground options.

Aloian and defense executives say Europe needs to confront the same reality. The precise way depends on each country’s size and security posture. but the direction is the same—disperse capabilities so they survive pressure. not because it is economical. but because the alternative invites destruction.

Ukraine defense firms distributed manufacturing drone attacks missile threat Ark Robotics Frontline Robotics Rheinmetall Himera Quantum Systems Quantum Frontline Industries NATO Davyd Aloian resilience European defense manufacturing