The Ministry of Defence has set out its approach to procurement speed, technology transfer with Ukraine and support for smaller firms, in response to a parliamentary question referencing the UK/EU-Ukraine Defence Innovation Corridor roundtable held at Westminster last month.
Luke Akehurst, Labour MP for North Durham, asked the Secretary of State for Defence what steps the department was taking on each of the three areas, citing the roundtable held on 23 June 2026. Answering, Minister of State Luke Pollard said: “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, MOD Ministers and officials have maintained a continuous dialogue across government, the private sector, and with Ukrainian counterparts to enable UK industry to collaborate on and support Ukraine’s highest priorities.”
On procurement speed, Pollard pointed to the National Audit Office’s September 2024 report on UK support to Ukraine, stating: “The National Audit Office report in September 2024 on UK support to Ukraine recognised the speed, innovation and collaboration shown by MOD in equipping and supporting Ukraine. The changes we are making to our procurement rules are similarly increasing the speed of procurement for our own armed forces.”
Turning to technology transfer and support for SMEs, the minister said: “Our bilateral arrangements with Ukraine facilitate the exchange of battlefield technology, the co-development of cutting-edge military capability and the creation of new intellectual property, all of which will be reinforced by the UK defence business centre about to open in Kyiv to provide UK companies, particularly SMEs, greater access to Ukraine’s military challenges and Ukrainian industry.”
The roundtable referenced in the question was held at Portcullis House on 23 June, hosted by Graeme Downie MP and organised by Tech Connecta Vertex Ltd and Stephen Hoffman Consulting Ltd. As the UK Defence Journal reported at the time, the event was built around a proposed framework intended to connect Ukrainian universities, manufacturers and researchers with UK and European industry, investors and government, on the argument that collaboration is already happening in pockets while a reliable pipeline is missing. Pollard took part, a presence organisers treated as a signal of how seriously the initiative was being taken. Downie described the initiative as “a vital step forward in our shared security architecture.”
Speaking at the event, Denys Kalachov of the Association of Ukrainian Defence Manufacturers traced the sector’s growth from a handful of firms when the association was founded in 2017 to more than 150 today, while warning that scale had not removed the barriers to working with foreign partners. He described regulatory obstacles, particularly around intellectual property, that can expose Ukrainian firms to criminal investigation at home, deter investors and stall partnerships before they begin. For him, the structure was the point: “this corridor of innovations, and the framework around it, would be the innovation itself.”
The corridor concept remains an early-stage proposal rather than government policy. In an earlier written answer, the MOD confirmed that officials met representatives of the initiative in March 2026 and advised on how any proposal could best align with existing UK-Ukraine defence engagement, adding that early-stage initiatives would be kept under review. That answer also referenced the Kyiv business centre as part of a move toward a permanent UK presence in Ukraine, building on the seventh and largest UK trade mission to the country in March 2026.
