Rheinmetall is building a factory in Ukraine.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/10/business/rheinmetall-german-tank-factory-ukraine/index.html

There was talk about it months ago and they were saying that the factory would be building panthers which I thought was ridiculous.
Well anyway.

> Rheinmetall will open an armored vehicle plant in Ukraine within the next 12 weeks, shrugging off concerns other Western defense companies reportedly have about building a presence in the country while it is at war with Russia.

> Germany’s biggest arms maker will also train Ukrainians to maintain the tanks and other armored vehicles made in the factory, which will be located in the western part of the country, CEO Armin Papperger told CNN in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

> “[Ukrainians] have to help themselves — if they always have to wait [for] Europeans or Americans [to] help them over the next 10 or 20 years… that is not possible,” he said.

> The company told the Rheinische Post newspaper earlier this year that it hoped to open a €200 million ($218 million) battle tank factory on Ukrainian soil, capable of producing about 400 tanks a year.

> Papperger said on Thursday that factory workers would build and repair Rheinmetall’s Fuchs armored personnel carrier — named after the German word for fox — under license in the facility. 


So they are definitely building Fuchs and they say that Ukrainians will be trained to maintain 'tanks and other armored(sic) vehicles' but I don't know if that means Panthers or if that actually means tanks at all and is not just the article assuming or generalising. Or ti could eb that Fuchs prduction will start in 12 weeks, and other more complicated vehicles will follow.

As for the vulnerability of the factory, the CEO of Rhinmetall thinks it will be able to be protected.

The Fuchs is just an 6x6 APC that can optionally be armed with a an MG weapons station(with two MG3s, not even 50.cals), it's not anything special and they can still easily get such vehicles from western allies and even from us(Australia).
They need tanks and IFVs, and even if this factory does produce though how many and how quickly they will do so is another matter.