At the International Defence Industry Exhibition in Kielce, she looked at how quickly the industry adapts what it develops, produces and supplies
When a defence company says it has taken Ukraine's experience into account, the question to ask is what changed as a result: its requirements, design, test scenarios, repair procedures or production plan, said Yana Shkvarovska, Director of the Defence Builder Accelerator, following MSPO 2026 in Kielce, Poland.
"Agreeing at a conference that the war has changed and rebuilding your work around it are two different things," Shkvarovska said.
Several presentations at the exhibition covered open interfaces and the integration of third-party technologies, which allow a manufacturer to update a system without rebuilding it from scratch. Shkvarovska said these are the examples worth studying, together with what still makes such updates difficult.
A product has to be producible, repairable and replaceable at scale, she said. Performance data says little about how many units can actually be delivered, whether spare parts are available, whether a system can be restored without returning to the factory and how much training it requires. This is also a question for procurement: buyers should assess a company's ability to support a system over time as well as how a single sample performs.
Shkvarovska also pointed to the role of component makers and small technology teams. A better communications module, navigation unit, sensor or piece of software can improve a system already in service, provided it is clear who is responsible for integration, testing and support.
The value of Ukraine's experience lies in working while needs, threats and component availability change during development, she said. For that experience to benefit Ukrainian companies, cooperation with international partners has to bring them funding, orders, access to components and production capacity, and new markets. Serving only as a source of information or a test site does not provide that.
Shkvarovska noted that next to the large pavilions the Ukrainian presence looked modest, a remark she said concerned presentation and did not reflect on the quality of the technology. Ukrainian companies need to show clearly what they can already do, what proves it, where their limits are and what kind of cooperation they are offering. Combat use builds trust, and documentation, test results, consistent quality and a clear production plan turn that trust into projects.
Exhibitions are also a place to source components for orders a company already has, she said, pointing to discussions of prices, lead times and supplier reliability. Every meeting should end with a next step: a technical request, a sample exchange, an agreed test, a named decision-maker or funding for the next stage.
MSPO 2026, the 34th International Defence Industry Exhibition, took place in Kielce on 8–11 September.
Defence Builder Accelerator is accepting applications for Batch 4.0 until 30 October 2026. The programme will select 10 defence and dual-use teams from any country with a working prototype at TRL 4+. Over four months, the teams validate their products with 30+ military units, demonstrate them to procurement officers, and work through production, IP, export and unit economics. Modules and components for platforms already in service are one of the seven priority areas.
Application form: https://defencebuilder.com/batch4-application-form.
Programme details: https://defencebuilder.com/batch4.
