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A huge arms factory must be built in Poland in order to help Ukraine win its war with Russia as the current model of arms donations is unviable in the long term, a the chair of the British parliament’s defence committee said on Thursday.
In an interview with the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, Tobias Ellwood said western governments had shown a lack of strategic foresight in their plans to help Ukraine endure and develop.
Ellwood expressed satisfaction at the decision to supply Ukraine with western tanks but said the current support model of multiple supply chains and types of ammunition was unsustainable. His solution to this was the establishment of an arms factory in Poland to supply its eastern neighbour more securely.
The Telegraph reported that talks on building such a plant had already commenced with Warsaw and that Ellwood believes the UK should take a leading role in the project.
The paper argued that Ukraine could use the factory to manufacture Leopard 2 tanks under a licence from Germany and that such a facility would ease pressure on western arms manufacturers.