European defense manufacturer KNDS opens office in Ukraine

French-German defense company KNDS has opened an office in Kyiv to support Ukraine carry out the domestic maintenance and repair of land systems and produce artillery ammunition, the company announced on Oct. 1.
KNDS is one of Europe’s biggest defense companies, formed from a 2015 merger of the German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and the French company Nexter Systems.
The subsidiary KNDS Ukraine LLC “will support the cooperation between Ukrainian government institutions, the Ukrainian armaments industry, and KNDS,”  the press release said.
KNDS makes around 800 systems used by or contracted for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the Caesar artillery gun, the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun tank, and the  PzH 2000 armored howitzer.
KNDS also intends to jointly manufacture NATO-standard 155 mm artillery ammunition and produce spare parts with the Ukrainian industry.
Ukraine has long tried to ramp up domestic ammunition production to become more independent from Western partners.
In the summer of 2023, the company Ukrainian Defense Industry said that it had already mastered the production of 82 mm mortar mines, 122 mm, and 152 mm artillery rounds, as well as 125 mm tank shells.
Alexander Kamyshin, the former strategic industries minister, announced in early September that Ukraine was already producing its own 155 mm artillery ammunition.