Why the Ukrainian Defense Industry failed (feat. Steven Zaloga)
In this video Steven Zaloga and I talk about the Ukrainian Defense Industry how it developed from the Fall of the Soviet Union up to about 2021, as well as the locations of important facilities and their products. We discuss the challenges, the problems, how it was integrated into the Soviet Defense Industry and what problems this brought for both Ukraine and Russia. We also look at what Ukraine and Russia did differently to keep their defense industries afloat.
Original cover: from Chad Nagle: Azovstal flickr.com/photos/16936128@N0... License: creativecommons.org/licenses/... Modifications: cropping, color, saturation, caption.
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00:00 Intro
00:31 Ukrainian Defense Industry Overview Past & Present
01:37 Naval Industry
03:18 Aerospace - Missiles
05:53 Aerospace - Aircraft & Helicopters
06:50 Armored Fighting Vehicles
08:16 Ukrainian Defense Spending 2021
09:41 Ukraine’s Role in Soviet Union vs Texas/California in the United States
12:11 Dynamics & Location of Defense Industry: Tank vs. Aircraft
13:42 Reconquering Production Facilities as War Goal?
17:50 Post-Soviet Decline of the Industry
19:18 End of Trade between Ukraine & Russian since 2014
20:05 Brain Drain from Military Industry to the Game Industry
23:13 Engineering Education US vs Austria / Germany
25:30 Ukraine’s Challenge: Lack of Investment
27:18 How did the Russian Defense Industry stayed afloat?
31:04 Why did Ukraine fail in exporting Military Hardware?
#ukraine , #ukrainedefenseindustry, #russiaukraine
Thanks for doing a talk with Zaloga. He doesn’t have enough stuff on KZhead
Yeah, his input on tank warfare in Ukraine would be awesome
This is the first time I hear someone talk so clearly about the problem of human capital in the RU/UA/BY defense industries. A little known fact, but the mobile phones lost their foldable antennas in late 90s thanks to the engineers from Sukhoi radar design bureaus who were pulled in by South Korean companies when they were trying to pierce in electronics.
Current WiFi steerable antennae come from phased array radars. Aim without moving the dish.
helping the capitalists? Off to the gulag you go!
@@jamegumb7298long live the military industrial complex.
Sukhoi survived the hard times of the early 90`s mainly because the engineers there invested their own capital to keep the lights on - Sukhoi was close to closing down..
Sukhoi survived because Russian state kept pumping a lot of money into it......thats how these things work in the end. Without large amount of state money, you ain't keeping that thing alive
Chinese and Indian purchases of Flankers saved them
Indian money kept Sukhoi alive in the 1990s
It's Suhoj, mister foreigner, and it has to relation to Russian word "bitch" in its instrumentative case.
@@worldoftancraft the latin transliteration is dependend on the language spoken. In germany we write Gorbatschow, while English say Gorbachev
The legendary Steven Zaloga.. I read his tank books in the library as a student. The librarian looked at me as if I was weird :)
Great interview, I've sat in some of his lectures on his other favorite subject, Model Building.
I have lots of Osprey books by him!
This is an extremely informative interview. Among many other insights, one thing that struck me was how "decoupling" the economies of the 15 former Soviet republics from each other is an underrated factor in the economic problems faced by the region after 1991. We are to some extent facing a similar issue worldwide since early 2020 with disruptions to global supply chains. The post-Soviet experience raises questions about the typical economics textbook view of free trade "floating all boats". In a vacuum with no other variables, it is indeed true that comparative advantage means that more and more globalization and interdependence is more efficient and thus more desirable. However, the more interdependent countries are with each other (to the extent that parts for the same product come from different countries, as with the helicopter engine and tank cast part examples from Zaloga's presentation), the easier it is for events that might be out of one country's control dramatically affecting their economy.
It reminds me of what happened to the whole economy of Austria-Hungary after WWI. The countries resulting from the break-up ended up having various industries with their supply chains broken.
Yeah, within the soviet sphere every country had a large degree of specialisation. Czech Republic had high tech industry, Poland was agricultural and light industry centre, etc etc
The rational way to deal with that is to price in the risk of any point in the supply-chain failing. So theoretically you can take advantage of efficiencies of specialization to get cheap products during normal times, but save up and have a back up plan for failure modes. Alas, it is human nature to make greedy gambles and NOT invest in backup plans. In that case, indeed, globalization can hurt when trade is disrupted. But that's not to say the tool is bad, it's that the humans using the tool can't stop themselves from abusing the tool.
Don't look up where computer chips come from.
@@lekhakaananta5864 if capitalism is self regulating towards efficiency then it stands for reason that not including risk into thee price signal is entirely market driven
This reminds ma a lot of former Yugoslavian defence industry. It took all of the federal republics to build M-84 mbt.
It reminds me the desintegration of Austria-Hungary 1918 and its armament industry, and the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993, too.
90’s were hard times when even regular people starved, so not so many cared about army - everything was just about survival. Ukrainian DI can make decent and even nice prototypes, but as same as all post soviet countries lacks investment and funds, as a result, it remains prototype or ends up in very small numbers (like T-84U or Kurganets)
Russians struggled too, even more than ukranians, due to food shortages, unlike agrary Ukraine. So your point is wrong.
@@solareclipse9379 But someone still has to buy food during inflation?
Let's look after the fall of USSR. Russia- First president was a drunk mess and for unknown reasons Putin's opponents which the population favourited died. Ukraine - Mobster as the first president, the second was also a mobster and the third was a puppet supported by the previous corrupted assholes. The issue is corruption from the times of USSR and people knowing nothing but the Soviet propaganda about the west.
@@scandited2763 A Russian troll. Ignore it. Ukraine, post USSR, suffered terribly. Russia had vast natural resources, primarily oil and natural gas. Ukraine lacked that, and thus its army was barely functional. The fact that Ukraine has a defense industry at all left after the 1990s is rather amazing.
"starved" is a bit of an overstatement. People have never starved in Ukraine except due to manmade famines. However times were rough and since Ukraine didn't plan to fight anyone military and defence industry weren't getting any money.
One point Steven made was that many of the newer players in the international arms trade are countries like South Korea which already have a robust civilian economy with products that were already competitive on the world market. So they had a better feel about what say US or European market requirements were than Ukraine. Also, South Korean companies probably had better contacts in these markets so if they needed to localize production they probably could make the necessary deals. Also, many South Korean companies have built manufacturing plants in other countries so they are very familiar with working with the locals. Ukrainian companies had to build up both their local civilian economy and create competitive products for the world market. One can name several South Korean companies but I suspect most could not name a Ukrainian company.
providing an example here Vietnam chose the South Korean turbojet engine for its indigenous anti-ship cruise missile rather than an Ukrainian turbojet engine (both of them are used in their respective copies of the same Soviet Kh-35 anti-ship missile - SSM-700K for South Korea and Neptune for Ukraine)
Antonov, Kraz, Zaz...
South Korean companies are free of the World War II mindset of building a giant factory to churn out robust but not very sophisticated equipment on a mass production line. Look at the South Korean sale of self propelled howitzers to Australia as an example of South Korean flexibility. They will build a factory in Australia to build and maintain the howitzers and potentially as a manufacturing base for export of Australian made South Korean howitzers. As a result both Australia and South Korea are well pleased with the deal. Meanwhile, countries that merely wanted to sell and export from their home-base factories lost out. Agility and adaptability are the hallmarks of modern high tech industries. It is the IP that is now the high value export, and the factory can be located anywhere.
The only Ukrainian company I know of may be Pocketbook, the e-reader manufacturer. And I'm not even sure if they're Ukrainian anymore, since they moved their HQ to Switzerland in 2013 and even their website now uses the ".ch" domain and doesn't mention anything about their Ukrainian roots.
@@BandytaCzasu Most of us here have probably heard of Antonov, but if you went into the street in a Western country and asked 100 people I would guess that only about 5 will have heard of Antonov, and none would have heard of other Ukrainian companies. Maybe a few older professional photographer might have heard of Kiev and FED cameras from the old days. I myself own a Hartblei lens, but they are extremely rare. However ask those same 100 people about South Korean companies and all 100 will know Samsung and almost all will know Hyundai and Kia. This 2022 war is a very terrible thing, but it is having a kind of benefit in that before the war many people knew little about Ukraine apart from a jet airliner being shot down there by Russians. This war has raised the profile of Ukraine globally as a democracy fighting for freedom, thus earning huge respect. When all this war is over, and reconstruction begins, I think it likely that investment will flow from outside and Ukrainian companies will do much better internationally. Previously Ukraine suffered from the hangover from the Soviet period and the Yanukovych years with its rampant corruption. Going forward Ukraine will be seen as a European country struggling to modernize and be part of the world community. Long term I feel quite positive about Ukraine's future, but sadly, that can only happen after Russia is pushed back out of Ukraine.
My taxi driver in Tel Aviv the other day, had immigrated from Kerch, Ukraine, and held an Engineering degree in maritime motorization from Kyiv U. Great guy BTW!
Interesting. I used to work for DoD where we helped YuzhMash and Pavlograd Chem Zavod eliminate their solid rocket SS-24s (RS-22) to comply with Start II elimination obligations.
There are a lot of reasons why Ukraine wasn't able to capitalize on its arms industry. 1)A lot of their products weren't new. Instead, they were legacy Soviet designs. During the 60s-90s Soviet weapons didn't perform that well on the battlefield and the 1st Gulf War showed everyone what a NATO force armed with Western weapons could do. Do you really want to buy arms with a poor track record? Wouldn't you want the weapons the winning side used? 2)Many of their customers opted to have Russia or Ukraine update/upgrade existing weapons instead of buying newly developed weapons. 3)The post-Cold War arms market was flat. There was a severe glut of used surplus Soviet gear available at scrap prices. So why would 3rd world customers buy new versions of old weapons when they could purchase old weapons much cheaper? 4)Small defense budgets. Both Ukraine and Russia suffered from greatly diminished defense budgets so while they were capable of developing extremely advanced prototypes they couldn't afford to put those systems into production without foreign orders and their own military opted to upgrade what it already had rather than buy new. 5)Chinese competition. The Chinese slowly built a large arms industry that produced licensed/unlicensed copies of Soviet-era weapons. Many of the systems the Chinese are selling are updated/upgraded Soviet-era weapons that are cheaper than newly built Ukrainian or Russian weapons while still being technologically competitive. 6)Israeli and Western arms manufacturers were able to provide updates/upgrades of Soviet weapons that allowed users to keep older Soviet systems in service.
I disagree with first part, specially when they say their bigeest export is old stockpiled equipment. A Tank is a Tank, a T54 is better than no tank, just look at Syria now one thing is the Western stuff about not getting American stuff if you buy Soviet/Russian applied to them for a time, therefore the west made Ukraine weak that way
Chinese arms were kicked to curb by Asians . It’s cheap … They are not a tech hub no matter what they say. Their culture is copy cat
@@cooldudecs you can dislike China all you want, I also dislike communism, but copy cat or original their stuff is good enough.
@@gerfand - So you disagree and then reinforce what I said? After the fall of the Soviet Union, there were huge stockpiles of Soviet weapons that flooded the arms market. Many times these could be bought for scrap prices and countries like Germany gave many of them away. The West didn't need to lower the value of these weapons because the Soviets did that by flooding the arms market. NATO did not dictate that its new members had to use Western-made NATO-compatible weapons either. Many of the former Warsaw Pact countries are still using Soviet-era weapons and are still producing weapons of Russian calibers.
@@rogerpennel1798 bro you got it wrong And NATO required you to change the ammo type for the supply chain But my point is that, the Ukranians selling their stockpile of older stuff shows that you are not right on the part of "nobody is buying that" And the US probably saw Ukraine as a Extention of Russia in the 90s hence my second point
An extremely informative interview. It's striking how such distributed integrated economies can be so easily disrupted. Like today's global economy, the soviet dissolution broke chains in the system. And they are still struggling to rebuild. Great interview.
No, the broken chains are not rebuild. The East-Ukrainian heavy industry is falling apart for good. And in Russia with these kind of sanctions and emigration of talent the industry is crumbling too.
@@jansix4287 that what they we're saying about Soviet Union for 40 years.
@@igor_pavlovich And then the Soviet Union collapsed. [q.e.d.]
@@jansix4287 well, it was not because of sanctions or emigration for sure.
@@igor_pavlovich Of course it was because of sanctions and flight of talent. The Soviet Union was cut off from the G7 and it couldn’t compete, despite all of Eastern Europe was forced to work for them, trapped behind a wall. Today Belarus is Russia’s only ally.
Fascinating interview and for finally being able to put a face to Mr. Zaloga. Over the years I've built up a modest collection of his books.
Quick fact: out of the cities that Steven Zaloga and other English speakers say have new names only Dnipro has a new name. Very few cities were renamed at all after 1991 (off the top of my head, I remember that Dnipro, Varazh and Kropyvnytskyi were renamed recently). The "new" names he is referring to are not new, they are simply the Ukrainian names that the Ukrainians have been using for a long time. The "old" names are the romanized versions of the Russian translations of the Ukrainian names.
I believe he was refering to new company names and actually not city names.
@@dnocturn84 I think it is important to watch the video before forming an opinion.
@@dmytrokyrychuk7049 I've watched the whole video, before I wrote my reply. That's what I understood from his statements. Right at the beginning, when he lists all of the major defence industries in categories naval, air force and land units, he stated, that it is hard for him to keep track of all of the individual companies, because they change (company) names over the course of time. Maybe you're actually refering to something else, later in the video, that I'm unaware of. Than we're dealing with a misunderstanding between us. My appoligies, if that's the case.
Ukraine changed those names from Russian names to change the Russian language legacy. Remember this parts are part of the Russian Empire.
@@baruasafi5880 yup and large parts of Ukraine were Russian before Ukraine even existed.
I've read a lot of books and articles with Zaloga's name on it, this is the first time I've seen his face or heard him talk.
One reason certain companies win contracts in the USA is basically the US Government has long taken the view that if they let a company fail, and there's no other corporation seeking to buy them out / merge with them (as Boeing did to M-D and Northrop did with Grumman), then they lose the jobs of that company and the expertise of his employees, possibly to another country (as they saw firsthand with A.V. Roe Canada after our government cancelled the Arrow). And very often they'll select the inferior design in a competition to prop up the company behind it. That for example is why Fairchild won the A-X competition with its YA-10 over the YA-9 of Northrop. Northrop at the time already had a growing order book for F-5 sales, which is how they had the funding to come up with such a great attack aircraft design, while Fairchild had basically nothing else in development and would have collapsed if they lost. Skip ahead a decade and Northrop wins the deal for the B-2 bomber, because after the F-20 flopped due to US government reversals on export policy (which originally saw the F-16 be ineligible for export to some countries, then be eligible), they were in danger of collaping. Skip ahead another few years and Lockheed wins the ATF program with the inferior YF-22 over the Superior MD-Northrop designed YF-23. Northrop had the B-2 money coming in and M-D had a healthy order book for F-15Es. When Boeing had the C-17s in production, that was a contributing factor for why Lockheed won the JSF competition. In Naval shipbuilding...the LCS program was originally intended to operationally evaluate two competiting class designs, the Freedom and the Independence class.... pick one as a winner and then produce only that one. THe Navy wanted to pick the Austal USA produced (in Alabama) Independence class, buit were forced by Congress to order both variants so that the Lockheed Martin Marinetta shipyard in Wisconsin would remain in operation, in spite of it being the inferior ship, and given the enormous number of problems the freedom class ended up being plagued by...well...you see the error of that decision. The US Navy now wants to divest itself of all nine operational Freedom class ships, in spite of the fact five more are currently building or on order.
First off, this was much more interesting than I had expected. I initially watched out of channel loyalty, not expecting to watch the whole thing, but you two made it worth watching and paying attention all the way to the end. Thank you! Then a couple of odd thoughts ... 1. Instead of "turning swords into plows", we'll have to say "turning sword makers into plow makers". 2. Someone needs to write a science fiction book where war games have become so realistic that wars are now decided by game simulations rather than real wars; new airplanes, tanks, ships, rifles, etc are still designed and created, in order to prove they are real so they can be incorporated into war games. Countries' military budgets are spent on war game support to make sure that is realistic too. This requires war game developers to shift to neutral countries, but because the definition and acceptance of "neutral" depends on which countries are concerned, multiple war game companies develop in different neutral countries. India might be neutral as far as South American or African countries are concerned, maybe even Europe, but use a Swiss war game for India-Pakistan conflicts. and South American or African war game for East Asian conflicts. Wars gradually become popular again, since casualty counts and infrastructure ruin have vanished. Some countries which were not in conflict until some new mineral resource is found may find they cannot go to war because all existing war games are not neutral for both countries; but because physical militaries have shrunk and deteriorated so much that a real war is impossible, they have to fall back on old-fashioned diplomacy, and the war gaming countries panic, rush to spawn a new subsidy elsewhere, and in the meantime try to sabotage the diplomatic talks for fear it will become a new fad and undermine the war gaming industry. I give this idea away free of any copyright :)
thank you, I am very happy with that interview. 1. Interesting point! 2. I don't think this will ever happen, because it is based on mutual trust and if that was existent between different factions I doubt it would come to wars in the first place.
Ref. your point 2. Star Trek TOS episode "A Taste of Armageddon" essentially featured something very similar. The conflict was conducted betwixt warring parties via computer simulations. When the missle exchange ended, citizens would receive, via a lottery, notification to report to a Disintegration Chamber so the conflict was not real but the casualties were.
I’ve heard that idea many times before, but to my mind there’s no sense in it whatsoever. War is the attempt to force another country by means of murder. All the tactics and strategy and technology exist in service of murdering people (or stopping the murder). There is no sense in “simulating” murder or surrendering to simulated murder.
@@grognard23 Thanks; never saw it. Too bad it didn't start from the top down with the leaders!
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 No Doubt. When the leaders have more on the line, say their offspring, it leads to at least slightly lower chances of a resort to force as a solution. And the more prosperous a nation is, the more likely this is to hold true.
Great presentation by Stephen Zaloga .Thanks for covering this aspect .
I am in the welding industry from Washington State in the United States. This makes perfect sense. Often you will see industry stick to an area but the reason it stays there is the ecosystem that develops around that industry. The actual infrastructure can be important because of the cost of building something new, but it requires that it remain working. Most equipment has to be maintained to stay good and will loose value if it sits. If the major equipment has to be rebuilt all at once it will often become better to buy new equipment especially when spending enough money taxes can often be lowered if there is a move to a new region. Often if something stays running there will be everything needed to support the industry in the area. This can include labor skills and specialized education. I have lived in two small cities that had 2 year technical colleges that offered a highly in demand degree that was only shared by one other school in the country. If there is ever any sort of shutdown or even enough of a slow down there will be a rapid breakdown of that ecosystem until it's just gone. For example in welding we have had a lot of problems with slowdowns cutting the need for welders and employers not bringing in new people and keeping the pay standards high that when the economy changes leads to huge shortages that end up being followed by construction changes to get around the shortages that lead to stabilizing the skills at fewer people and the cycle repeats. For some trades it can lead to the migration of types of work leaving entire parts of the world and changes in what actually can be built. A break-up like the USSR had to have a massive affect and some of the more transferable and higher earning skills may move but sometimes skills will just be lost. The world is going to begin to struggle with this in the future as the baby boomers haven't transferred many skills.
We went better than that here in NZ, we did away with supporting businesses who employed apprentices. Then everyone was expected to get "degrees" in all sorts of trades, meaning lots of people dropped out of practical trades. No we have a huge shortage of useful, employable kids.
Steven "I've written more books than you have read" Zaloga?!?!?!
yeah, I remember once on reddit, someone asked for book recommendations, one guy noted Zaloga is a good start and I wrote something along the lines, that basically means a few hundred if not more books.
Very interesting program. Thanks to both of you.
In the 1980s Southern California had defense plants all over the place. Eventually the companies moved out of state because of labor costs and regulations. There seem to be a lot of German American engineers in the industry at the time. Though engineers became disillusioned to their career choice because aero-space projects would only last 5-7 years then they would have to look for new projects at other companies. This made them start looking 3-5 years into a project for another job to get ahead of the rush for the doors. So little job security.
There still are quite a lot of defense plants here. I live right near the Aerojet Rocketdyne plant (only one exists, in Southern California).
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 the rocket industry has “Florida syndrome” where they legally can only launch from 2 optimal points and thusly, for the sake of logistics move to those 2 points. Being cape Canaveral, and vandenburg. So due to their lucky latitude, they get an aerospace industry that is reliant on them.
Tekst źródłowy Tell this to me and all guys from software development. Most extended projects without initial clients can last a year and a half, rarely up to nearly two years. With initial clients of two and a half years and it shuts down the production effort, the teams and the dedicated sections of companies. So you can't really search for the next workplace in advance.
@@HanSolo__ I didn't mean the software projects. I meant programs like a missile, helicopter or aircraft. I was in software so my projects only went on for at most a year. Then I worked with another group. The engineers who I worked with were the ones who had to jump to new programs before their program ended.
@@HanSolo__ Amen bro, one gets used to the nearly continuous uproar and learns to depends on one's skills and self-marketing capacity.
Excellent, informative, clear. Addressed a lot of questions I didn’t know I had.
Congrats for getting Steven Zaloga on your channel! Great presentation
I just watched WW2TV's video on the battle of the Bulge where they had a 1.5 hour talk with Zaloga and I thought how excellent that is: one of the best authors out there getting time here on KZhead, they ought to do this more! Then Military History Visualised brought this. Made my day! Thousands of thanks to you Bernhard Kast!
Thank you for bringing up this important but so often overlooked aspect of the wider conflict, its history but also how easy it is to loose a capability as a state and how hard it is to rebuild.
Thanks to you both!
That was a great interview! He was very knowledgeable!
Fantastic guest. Thank you
What a super interesting and informative discussion. Really appreciated this
Glad you enjoyed it!
Really useful info thanks.
That was fascinating, I would have happily listened to a few more hours of this!
War is 90% logistics and 10% actual combat.
Thank you for such a good analysis Steven and Bernhard.
Very informative. Thank you.
Another great video, very informative and its always to see what Zaloga has to say.
Very nice interview. No bullshit, no fake news, straight facts. He seems to have a very good understanding of the Defense industry and life in general. Much appreciate second interview in the upcoming future. Thanks.
Nice to see Mister Zaloga. And a great talk.
So when it came to numbers of Tank Plants in USSR - there were 3 main ones (one in Ukraine, 2 in Russia) and 2 support ones - which were basically there to produce designed tanks. Of course most known was the Kharkiv one. They handled most of R&D and new stuff, but at least 1 other factory got their chance (the one that developed T-72). So Russia wasn't without a Tank Plant. It was still out of money. But just like with Ukraine I wouldn't call it a failure - you cannot have better military for the price of people starving.
There was a tank plant of some sort in SPb. I'm not sure what type of tanks it made (possibly T-72), but these days it is a bunch of industrial buildings leased to various small companies. But I've been told there are a couple of the factory buildings that are off limits to most people, and are still making or refurbishing tanks. So there must have been some minor tank industry there in the 1980s.
Then how about India & China? their people starving yet their military still going strong
@@akirasean4080 A much larger population is the answer. You can only spend what you earn through taxes from your people. A billion Chinese or Indion people will of course contribute more to their government fundings, than 50 million Ukrainians, even if these 50 million will pay slightly higher taxes in comparsion.
very nice, thanks!
That video has very good insight. Questions and answers :-)
Great video! Lot of info
Very good analysis! I feel that I have a more complete picture now. :)
Would love to see more of him on here.
love your work man.
I'm a simple man, I see Steve Zaloga, I hit play
@Edka Poik It does tend to simplify things greatly...
Very interesting and informative guest
Excellent episode
Thanks a lot for Inviting Steven Zaloga! I bear very high respect for him and his work. Have a couple of his books, real books not e-files :-)
I actually didn't mind you going off topic. The discussion of how austria higher education / academic situation vs the United States was interesting.
Poland was already using Korean components, that is to say the Krab 155 mm howitzer marries a Korean chassis with a British turret. Interesting development process too, they seemed to have gone from conception via testing to production in 2 years. (I don't know if that is fast or not, but I see tanks sometimes taking 10+ years for the same process, so it seems fast.)
Ukraine has proved that tanks and armoured personnel vehicles are easy targets for today’s man launched missiles. It’s also shown that long range rocket and artillery are extremely important. Weapons that everyone assumed had become unimportant.
Yes, this was fast. Poland was using the British turrets (incl. electronics) for a long time at this point. They just switched the chassis from a T-72 basis to the Korean chassis. So the required changes were not so difficult to make. And Poland kept large parts of its military industry alive, even though it also shrunk over time. Just look at the difference in military funds between Ukraine and Poland at the beginning of this video. This explains a lot, especially when you look at how much lerger Ukraine is compared to Poland. Ukrainian defence industry had lots of big problems to deal with after the Soviet Union collapsed. They touch this suject in the video, but the whole process is much more complex than that. For example: an additional problem for most Soviet industries was always SIZE of the plants. They were build to make gigant amounts of tanks for the entire SU. So all production processes were scaled to match this purpose. With much smaller tank numbers, these plants were designed to be too big and too reliant on way too large numbers of labor forces (and other stuff, like energy, heating, etc.). But just reducing the numbers of workers will result in a plant, thats barely operational, because it was never designed to run with just 1/20th of the labor forces. One example: the foundry to cast steel. They consume large amounts of energy and run with a large number of workers, but it only makes sense to turn them on, when you want to cast steel for dozens of tank parts. Such a foundry will not really work with low production numbers. You might even end up damaging your machines, when running too low numbers, or you might have to keep it shut for 3.5 weeks of a month, just to run it for half of a week to cast the required parts and then shut down again. Adjusting to this is hard, even for western countries. Sometimes it is even better to give up the old plant and build a new smaller one instead, with more automatisation and with everything fitting your production numbers.
The two year timeframe was only the final phase as the earlier attempt to use a Polish T90 chassis failed.
@@dnocturn84 No, the previous chassis of Krab was not taken from the T-72 tank.
@@michaelmazowiecki9195 There was never such a thing as "Polish T90." There is the PT-91, which is its own thing. To be honest, the Russian T-90 hull and chassis have more in common with the T-72 than the PT-91 has.
really glad steven zaloga is still active, really love his books. specially the M1 Abrams main battle tank.
Very interesting. I appreciated your off track comments there, and Steven's, about engineering schools, please don't completely edit that stuff out, maybe add it at the end :)
Wow amazing and deep content
I mean building vital stuff right on the border has serious downsides
It's not as crazy as you make it sound. Those industries had been there for many decades, even going into prior to WWII and even the Cold War. There was a separation with the fall of the USSR but both Russia and Ukraine still traded with each other. It's only starting with 2014 that it all changed and suddenly location became a dire problem.
@@Warmaker01 True.
@@Warmaker01 it's also a poor country. Identifying a problem and having the resources to do something about it are different things
As we saw in the past 3 months the location of the sites, their distance from the border became irrelevant. Ukraine is around 1,300 km across, it's big, but that is still less than the range of Russian cruise missiles, allowing Russia to strike anywhere and any time. For example the Luch factory where anti-ship missiles were made got taken out the day after the Moskva incident. The same applies to most of the UA defence industry, all rubble now. Since 2014 most of their products Russia used to import have already been replaced with domestic ones, either upgraded or entirely new ones, so Russia has no practical need for them. One exception is Motor Sich, due to the heavy (40%) Chinese investment there it is mostly intact.
Stugna-P is Ukrainian-Made and is great product.
Interesting conversation about the social and cultural demographics and educations. Other stuff too, but I especially like when things go off topic into an interesting area.
I worked with a guy in New Zealand who's job in the USSR was working on guidance systems for ballistic missiles, this was in an office automation repair workshop!
Very interesting.
This was informative. I wondered why ukraine kept asking for weapons when i though they had robust defense industry.
I believe that there needs to be a bridge on KZhead where KZheadrs bring in the historians of older generations like Zaloga who are essentially bookbound, that is they don't have a presence on social media (Antony Beevor, Catherine Merridale and many more).
Motor Sich make a diverse range of products not just gas turbines and aircraft engines. They also make basic agricultural equipment such as hand ploughs. The liquid fuelled blowlamps that I use in my workshop are made by Motor Sich.
Tak!
thank you very much!
Given the prior system collapsed largely due to insane defence spending, Ukraine was hardly likely to maintain those spending levels, even if it could. There wasn't that much export demand for those items either, and what there was soon became swamped by selloffs of existing kit.
is not america spending insane amounts i havent a clue ? but something has to reach bresking point very soon
@@anthonymitchell8893 yeah. The US historically incurred massive debt during a war, the largest ever being during the post depression WW2 decades. And in recent cause of the 9/11 attacks and the whole war on terror. Frankly with our overall withdrawal we will see a slight decrease in debt, but to say that the debt will be gone is surely impossible due to the way the fed works.
Awesome job, do we know what the current status is of the factories? I'm wondering if the actual building are destroyed or stitch in one piece? Especially in Karkev. Also are the specialist who worked there on the front lines or did they get deported back to Russia
zavod 311 is very famous, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 casualties were there. For the Battlefield 4 map too
Zaloga is a very familiar noun for me (means a garrison in either Polish or Ukrainian). Is he of either origins? Also, economic historians in Ukraine pointed that the arms industry was 30% of the soviet complex
This was very intersting. Particularly the Part about the Russian Tank production. A topic I am looking into at the moment
I think that even the CIA would like to learn from this channel! Special thanks to Profesor Zaloga.
Pretty interesting how the USSR worked. USSR supplied materials to these States and these States in return provide them arms and equipment. Just hows how connected and dependent they are to each other.
Zaloga is excellent!
A turbin is what people wear on their heads and a turbine is a motor. Pronunciation is a real thing
Thank you for the information about the Ukrainian defence industry. Although these were relevant only up to 23rd of February. As I understand most of it is rubble now, some were captured, others received shipments of Kalibr, Kh-101 and Iskander missiles. One notable exception is Motor Sich, due to the heavy Chinese investments there (41% I think) it is mostly intact.
It isn't quite rubble but yeah, firing up those factories at the moment is not feasible, our transportation is already overloaded, constant threat of additional "oh, you guys stood back up? Here, catch another missile, we still have a lot", and the source material... Most of it comes from eastern regions which are active warzone. Like Mariupol steel plant.
@@Lowezar B..Bb..But "Muh Russia is running out of ammo! Just like they're running out of gas, food, tanks, planes, helicopters, and the sanctions are about to be destroy their economy!(Sanctions sure have been destroying an economy, several in fact just happens to be the countries that implemented them)" I know that's true cuz the MSM, Kiev(not Kyiv) Independent, Twitter "Intel" Twats, and Reddit. Along with every youtuber who has a big enough viewer base that if they say anything contrary to "ukraine is tots winning and the good guys" would lose significant revenue. That's what they all said months ago and more! They said that the "Great and Mighty" AFU would and I quote "Man Ukraine didn't start this war(actually they n the US did) but now that the Russians started it and with the ghost of Kiev(not Kyiv) overhead they'll totally take Moscow by August!" And they're "The Experts"! What you're saying about places being in rubble and the Russians still having missiles sounds a lot like....*GASP* Russian Misinformation!. . . . . You should be careful with what and how you say things bud you know that right? Trust me you don't want the SBU, Right Sector, Kolomoyskyi's goons, or some other бандерівці kicking in your door and disappearing you for being a "Russian Agent" or "Saboteur". As I'm assuming that you're actually in Ukraine from the way you refer to things in your comment. All it takes is the wrong person seeing a comment like yours and a phone call for BAD things to happen.
@@Lowezar this ended up being like a fight between two guys who had been kicked in the balls and stabbed, except Russia got up first and continued kicking Ukraine in the sack while the West is throwing Ukraine a Kevlar vest and knives while scolding Russia.
@@ivanivanovitchivanovsky7123 Good one, Ivan, go receive your 15 rubbles.
@@Lowezar I’m not even Russian, I’m Southeast Asian mate. But my point was that they both got mauled by the economic collapse, how is any of my analogy wrong? Please point it out. The Ukrainians didn’t really recover from the collapse as well as Russia did, hence my saying Russia got back up first. Of course, if im wrong there I’ll be happy to admit it, provided I see proof, however that’s just what I guessed based on what I know of the two countries. Edit: if you think I’m saying the West is tryna throw knives and harm Ukraine, I’ll just say this to be clearer, I meant it as in throwing them knives to use.
A few more factors which has been causing problems for Ukrainan defence industry 1. Brain-drain to Russia: As mentioned before all post-soviet countries experienced a brain-drain from the defense industry after Soviet Union collapsed and borders became open. For Ukraine it was especially damaging. Lacking the state support, while the russian had it, talents were leaving not only to the Western countries, but to Russia as well, in all industries across the board. 2. Limitations on collaboration: Being a smaller country and needing to please foreign partners was also limiting the amount of cooperation Ukrainian defence can do. E.g. there were several potential contracts with China, including Chinese investors were interested in buying MotorSich, but the deal was scrambled because of the pressure from US. 3. Corruption and mismanagement: Ukraine had issues with corruption and mismanagement of state owned companies especially in 1990s and early 2000s. The defence industry was not an exception. From mid 2000s Russia reportedly was using the situation to obtain technologies and/or set up production for sectors they were lacking, and started replacing import from Ukraine. Reforms and fighting corruption is not exactly easy and quick process, so in the short term it also causes more problems to an organization. Potentially, transparent privatization of defence copmanies could have helped. 4. Peaceful image and naive security outlook: Finally comparing with Russia, since the fall of Soviet Union, Ukraine was promoting a peaceful image and not considering military capacity an important issue. Partially assuming that there are no imediate military threats in the region, partially relying on Budapest memorandum and its security guarantees, partially believing on special "good" relations with Russia. These could be summed up to a rather naive view on security matters. Focusing on EU-ascention, and following recomendations from the Western partners, state and public priorities were not on defense industry. A minor factual correction Hartron (or KharTron) is located in Kharkiv, not in Kyiv as mentioned on slides (thus it start with "Khar"). And a contextualization, although Ukrainian defense spendeing is ~3 times smaller than Polish in absolute numbers, it is greater share of GPD, as Ukrainan GDP is ~4 times smaller than Polish
Thanks! I wondered why the Ukraineans could not leverage their industry for defense. This explains the sad story.
Fascinating fact about the developers of IL2
If you look at defence industry throughout the world it had a hard time post the end of the cold war, essentially there was no investment in new systems until the old ones literally started falling appart (even the US Navy is still basically using the Arleigh Burkes for instance) it's easy to see how Ukraine would have a really hard time maintaining its defence industry in that environment - especially with a glut of Soviet era weapons lying around. Even so it's impressive what capability there was in Ukraine and potentially it's easier to build back a previous capability then do it from scratch.
The Kharkov Tractor Factory was designed and built by American industrial architect Albert Kahn's firm in the 1930s. I suspect one or two others of these were as well. It's crazy that 100s of these factories are still in use.
In Germany, all categorys of higher education more and more rely on cast membership, and our permeability between financial casts is one of the worst in EU. Financial stuff, architecture, law and such 'noble' subjects of study are most effectet, but not in first for the heavyness of the topic. You can study from all backrounds, if your family don't need teh additional income. You can study with your mind on teh topic and on one or two jobs to keep housing and stuff, or your family supports you - there's a tendency who makes it more easy. In jobs, your social backround still is relevant, as in GER a lot of entanglement takes place. Rule of thumb is that the higher the social cast of a person is, the less he/she is demanded to deliver on the job.
Having normal winter doesnt mean severe winter, its just that in the south there is no winter. St. Petersburg has normal winter, Nikolajev has mild winter.
What's normal and mild is a matter of perspective
@@anonymousAJ No. Look at all possible winters and the most common middle one is what is normal. (no winter is not taken in to the equasion for what is a normal winter)
@@anonymousAJ Severe winter, normal winter, mild winter and no winter. Are just as objective as Tropical, subtropical, temperate and taiga forrests
St. Petersburg is a damn freezer, "Normal winter" HAHAHAHAHAHAH.
@@malcontender6319 Yes winter is freezing, thats normal winter. If there is no snow and ice its mild winter.
So the focus of this interview was clearly on the time 1945-2015 maybe. I would be curious: - what is the state of the Ukrainian arms industry now, after the destruction and capturing of facilities? - what western weapons has the Ukrainian military already introduced over the last years? Western assault rifles?
With the conflict ongoing it would be incredibly hard to asses. First, because the information is not available. And second, because it changes day to day, so any video might be outdated between the time of recording and the upload.
When it comes to American defense Industry I feel like I have to brag. While my state of Connecticut is the 3rd smallest state in the union we have a large stake in defense industry having Pratt and Whitney, General Electric Boat and Sikorsky
Good job
As per engineering schools in the USA, Mr. Zagola might be confusing graduate engineering degrees and undergrad. Undergraduate ones are more "broad" in terms of demography. Graduate ones are majority foreign.
I know that it got a bit offtrack, but I'd very much be to hear what was cut out in some kind of extended version
OMG FKING ZALOGA???? he is like in literally every 2nd book on my shelves!
Love how he brushes off the plants going from Cali and New York to Texas as ‘cost of labor’. Not the cost of living in those two states being outrageous, along with the taxes.
When a youtube video is more informative, then the news ...
This guy is very knowledgeable and handled the less informed host in a very professional way.
Great interview, I wonder if Mr Zaloga could shed any light on Ukrainian artillery ammunition production, given their current shortages.
The only ammo plant was in Luhansk and was occupied and destroyed in 2014. There were numerous plans to build a new one, but it failed. The actual reasons are unknown, but there are some versions, they may be true on their own or altogether: 1. The lack of money to build a plant and sustain the expenditures in order to craft enough ammo of different kinds 2. Poor planning of UA government and corruption factor 3. Backroom ban on military and dual-purpose exports to Ukraine in fears of worsening relations and escalarion with Russia, this includes factory machines for ammo production.
Quite surprised by how this has concentrated on Equipment, rather than munitions. Particularly as an artillery battle is underway that is draining munition stockpiles at a rapid rate. This is the production battle that needs to be won. For example the main Ukrainian artillery shell production facility is in Sumy, it produced all of their 152mm shells, the main calibre for their artillery. It would have been interesting to understand why this was not relocated away from the Russian border following the 2014 invasion (its 25km from the Russian border and was a main objective of the Russians).
Now, which are the ruzzian main mil plants? Which of them are within shooting range of Ukraine (within the say, 120-150km)?
Mr tank man Zaloga! He needs a KZhead channel!
Rostislav Ischenko has a very good article on this years ago.
Well, that's quite simple: in order to make large quantity of weapons, you need large state procurements: deficit budget with cuts of military spending => no state procurements. In order to make weapons for exports , you need innovation. No R&D expenditures => no innovations => No weapon exports The more accurate title for the video would be "how did Ukrainian armaments industry manage to survive"!
Luhansk cartridge plant (Ukraine's only small arms ammunition manufacturer. It was captured by the Luhansk People's Republic during the War in Donbass) 2014
interesting but... here in Newe Hampshire and in Mass. there is a HUGE defense industry. Lots of tech, sensors, robotics, drones etc. here...
What is the status of the Grom/Hrim project ? Everybody is talking about ATACMS but Grom could serve the same purpose
I'm a young disabled americain and I'm in entertenment becuase it's eaiser to do and get into then the defense indutry... Personally I don't know how they could hire me though given how disabled I am mayby as an advisor but still... Which forntunatly I can do something and inpser those who aaqre able to be in it unlike in the past when it would have been much harder to even just be an author never the less all the thing I have going on... So I belive the young talent is not going to waste it's just going to differnt means to get the same resault.
I heard there’s a lot of educated Iranians. What’s their defense industry like and have they been able to avoid a degradation similar to Ukraine?
No and no.
They didn't have that much to start with in comparison with Ukraine
@@sebbonxxsebbon6824 Given their recent release of footage regarding RQ-9 Reaper-like drone variants(They did successfully hack and land one intact a few years ago after all) in the hundreds in an underground hanger/bunker. As well as several other events of importance and successful tests of other new systems. I'd say you're quite incorrect in your rather terse yet stupendously arrogant statement. Have they had difficulties and are there area's in their defense industry where they struggle or are deficient? Most assuredly they do, particularly I would say in the arena of Naval ship development and construction. As they've had a few high-profile incidents relating to their Navy's attempts at modernization and new constructions. But without providing anything substantive as an argument you're just declaring yourself either A) A troll. B) An anti-Iranian shill. C) A typical Western who can't think without the media or government to do it for him. Or D) You're just a being a dick. Hoosteen asked an honest question and I must say seeing an asinine response like yours is rather irritating.