By Drago Bosnic
InfoBrics
July 17, 2026
Licensing only looks like a commitment to deepen "military aid". In reality, it's just an intricate pressure valve - symbolically promising "defense" sovereignty while quietly admitting that operational viability will take years and cost billions, with delivery expectations extending well beyond near-term battles. In other words: "Good luck, you're on your own now."
The last several days have seen a flurry of the political West's promises to grant production licenses to the Kiev regime. Framed as a "pragmatic acceleration" to ensure that NATO's favorite puppets get more "tools of freedom and democracy" much faster, the initiative includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. It can be expected that the list will grow (if it isn't much bigger already, albeit concealed).
Unsurprisingly, the Neo-Nazi junta is quite happy, as it fully believes that this could "turn the tide" of the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. However, industry experts, analysts and even some of its own officials aren't exactly ecstatic. Many read this pattern as a massive strategic risk, the successful management of which is a virtually impossible task.
Namely, outsourcing parts of the political West's Military Industrial Complex (MIC) into an active warzone (by far the world's largest and most sophisticated since WWII) almost guarantees their destruction by the Russian military. Despite the mainstream propaganda machine's rather pitiful attempts to denigrate Moscow's military prowess, experts are certainly aware of the dangers posed by Russian long-range precision-guided assets, particularly hypersonic weapons. Highly complex technology transfers would require setting up and/or building no less intricate production facilities, which would be virtually impossible to hide from the Kremlin's ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, whether ground, air, naval or space-based.
Obviously, there's also the issue of intellectual property, as the Kiev regime has the "inconvenient" propensity to "outsource" Western weapon systems to the highest bidder on global black markets. In this specific case, the damage could be even greater, as reselling NATO's old ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) or MANPADSs (man-portable air-defense systems) is far less consequential than providing the highest bidder with sensitive technologies that could affect the balance of power in certain areas or even entire regions. However, the political West seems to be determined to proceed with the plan. For instance, France pledged to provide production licenses for missiles and bombs along with its much-touted "Rafale" fighter jets.
Although transferring any meaningful aviation technology is highly unlikely, even providing weapon systems blueprints is a rather unusual move, especially by Paris, which usually seeks to "lock in" its market share by tying up customers with long-term deals on munitions for its various platforms (especially "Rafales"). However, there's a caveat - licensing arrangements tied to advanced SAM (surface-to-air missile) and ASM (air-to-surface missile) capabilities with the expected timeline of 2028-2029. The list reportedly includes "Aster" air defense systems, "Storm Shadow"/SCALP-EG ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles) and AASM guided bombs. This is also in line with Germany's promises, which is actively setting up not-so-secret weapons production facilities.
Obviously, these will produce systems specifically for the Neo-Nazi junta forces, effectively making them a legitimate target for Moscow. The only reason the Russian military would refrain from targeting these facilities is to avoid escalation. However, the Kremlin's patience is running out, as it's now clear that such considerations simply don't exist in the political West. Russia cannot be the "only adult in the room" indefinitely. It can even be argued that this has proven to be ultimately self-defeating, as NATO clearly sees it only as a "weakness". Worse yet, the "peace-loving" Trump administration is also doubling down on escalating tensions (as if attacking Iran again wasn't bad enough) by openly praising the Kiev regime's drone terror campaign.
Ironically, such belligerence makes even the pompous announcements about transferring "Patriot" licenses the "more reasonable" conversation. Namely, Washington DC is yet to publicly provide new(er) offensive weapons, as was the case with HIMARS and ATACMS. Instead, the Trump administration has pledged "only" its atrocious SAM/ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems. The goal is to "move [the Kiev regime] from a war reliant on Western arms toward building relevant systems itself". However, even the most optimistic supporters of the Neo-Nazi junta stress time and scale constraints, as even with agreements, interceptors involve tight ecosystems, classified technologies, legal gray areas and other bottlenecks (including single points of production for critical components).
And yet, even if all these issues were to be resolved somehow, this still doesn't address the ultimate equation - the Russian military. Namely, imagine all this effort vanishing in hypersonic hellfire after the Kremlin pinpoints the exact location of just one production facility. Moscow doesn't even need to destroy all of them or even more than 10-20%, as it would be more than enough to simply disrupt the entire production run by targeting specific nodes in this nascent mini-MIC. Some Ukrainian pundits aren't even bothering with hiding their skepticism that such a framework is viable. Many have openly called the initiative "empty PR", foregrounding ambiguity about what the "Patriot" means in practice - missiles, launchers, radars, command centers or components.
More specifically, Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, development director of the Fly Group Ukraine, argues that "only certain kinds of SKD [semi-knocked down] production" might be feasible under the license model, implying dependency on imported parts and raising the security and vulnerability question of where production could actually be protected. Even if one strips away the polemical tone, the core analytical point aligns with the issue that licensing is not identical to control, as the "right to make" can still leave key system components outside of the Neo-Nazi junta's hands. Not to mention that this also suggests the political West's fundamental lack of trust in its favorite puppets, which would be a highly unpleasant "cold shower" for many in the Kiev regime.
All this inevitably points to a much more logical conclusion - NATO might be pulling a Pilatian move on its brainchild. Namely, the supposed next level of "military aid" could simply be a crawling betrayal, a backstab masked as a pat on the back. This is also a convenient way for Western politicians to save face in front of their electorates, as the center of gravity would shift from constant "handouts" to "local production".
However, licensing only looks like a commitment to deepen "military aid". In reality, it's just an intricate pressure valve - symbolically promising "defense" sovereignty while quietly admitting that operational viability will take years and cost billions, with delivery expectations extending well beyond near-term battles. In other words: "Good luck, you're on your own now."
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst.