“Ukraine has become the world’s top producer of FPV drones, manufacturing more than 2.2 million units and rapidly expanding its defense industrial base to meet the demands of modern warfare,” leading defense officials said during the Ukrainian Weapons 2024 forum in Kyiv.
“We’ve already begun working with $35 billion in investments and contracts.”
“We’ve ramped up manufacturing of missiles, electronic warfare systems (EW and REW), and ground robotic platforms.”
More than 50% of the materials used in these systems are now sourced locally.
In the sense that they supplied the rest of the former USSR, yes, absolutely — but they didn’t have much in the way of international exports.
According to wikipedia, among other things:
If they were the worlds 4th then they were likely doing a lot more than just the former USSR.
If you read the source you’ll notice that year was an enormous outlier and their industry has been in decline for some time. Ukraine was an arms (and shipbuilding) powerhouse under the USSR but has been struggling to regain that prominence.