Ukraine’s newly appointed head of defense industry says he is working tirelessly to ramp up local arms production and wants to turn the country into a weapons production hub for the West.

Oleksandr Kamysyhin, the minister for strategic industries of Ukraine, said that Russia’s invasion of his country and the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Middle East have highlighted the need for countries to spend on their defense systems.

“We’re really focusing on making Ukraine the arsenal of the free world,” Kamyshin told The Associated Press in an interview late Friday.

Kamyshyn said approximately 500 companies in Ukraine’s defense industry are contributing to the country’s efforts to increase weapons production in order to counter Russia’s attempts to seize more territory. Among those are 70 state-owned factories, over 200 primarily private factories producing unmanned systems, and more than 200 private sector companies involved in the production of various types of weaponry and ammunition.