Europe’s weapons factories are expanding at three times the rate of peacetime, stretching over 7mn sq metres of new industrial development that represents rearmament on a historic scale.
Building activity at European arms sites has gone into overdrive since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to a Financial Times analysis of radar satellite data covering 150 facilities across 37 companies.
The data shows that Europe’s long-promised defence revival, driven by an injection of public subsidies, is beginning to materialise not just in policy rhetoric or spending pledges but also in concrete and steel.
It comes as EU governments argue over how to sustain arms deliveries to Kyiv, as well as rebuilding their own stockpiles, in the face of a potentially wavering US commitment.
Using more than 1,000 radar satellite passes, the FT tracked changes at sites associated with ammunition and missile production, two bottlenecks in the west’s support for Ukraine.
