Ukraine receives US-made industrial-size 3D printers to produce spare parts for army

Ukraine has received industrial 3D printers from the United States, which can be used to print spare parts for military equipment on the battlefield, says William LaPlante, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

What is the problem?

Ukrainian soldiers constantly need to purchase spare parts for their armory when operating military equipment.

Manufacturing them under peaceful conditions takes a while, as the spare parts must also be delivered to the battlefield, which is not always possible to do quickly under Russian shelling.

The Pentagon report says that after the Russian invasion, Ukrainians began printing 3D spare parts on their own and even at home.

Ukrainians printed their own 3D parts without any technical data packages. You know what they say, when your country is under an existential attack, intellectual property laws matter only a little bit, the official said.

What is the solution?

LaPlante hinted that the Ukrainians did not have the appropriate authorization to do so, but the allied countries helped Ukraine in this matter.

We have put this in order, along with other countries. Now they have all the technical data packages, LaPlante emphasized.

How does it work?

According to a US Department of Defense representative, these industrial-size 3D printers were delivered to Ukraine in August, while Ukrainians completed training in the use last week.

It's a printer the size of a truck, which Ukrainians have completed training on, and they can print all their parts on it, he explained during a speech at the Center for a New American Security.

The presence of these 3D printers on the Ukrainian side "completely changes the game" because these devices expedite the process and open up new possibilities.

You can do amazing things with 3D printing, not just because of the speed. You can actually produce parts that you couldn't make under normal circumstances, emphasized the Pentagon representative.

The technology of 3D printing has been in use in Ukraine for a while, however, it has only recently come to light that there are plans to create an entire building using a 3D printer.

A similar project has been initiated in Irpin, a war-battered city of the Kyiv region, where they intend to build the country's first private house using a domestically produced 3D printer.