UKRAINE-OPK-UAU-RELEASE

OPK expects from GSU APU more clear guidelines for rearmament plans – “League of Defense Companies of Ukraine“

Kiev.22 February. INTERFAX-UKRAINE – The defense industry of Ukraine, and first of all its private segment, expects from the General Headquarters of the Supreme Armed Forces more clear targets for rearmament of the army, Valentin Badrak, the executive director of the League of Defense Enterprises of Ukraine, told Interfax-Ukraine.

“To date, Ukrainian private defense companies are ready to” close “the need of the Armed Forces for certain types of weapons and invest in new developments, as well as their production, but they have no guarantees of their subsequent purchase by the state customer,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

According to him, first of all, this concerns the army’s need for unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as for ammunition of the caliber of 12.7 to 30 mm, which meet the western standards.

One of the targets of the military industrial complex in the field of rearmament, B. Badrak noted, could be the introduction of the practice of open defense order (GOZ) in Ukraine following the example of a number of European partners. He questioned the reasonableness of the SEC’s secrecy, explaining: “Closed COC significantly complicates the creation of a competitive environment among defense manufacturers, but it stimulates the lack of responsibility and abuse in solving the tasks of rearmament.”

An example, according to V. Badrak, is the purchase from a foreign customer of armored cars Saxon and BAK of a mini-class, purchases in the conditions of the failure of the previous contract of the Warta cars from an engineering company. “It is significant that 95% of the nomenclature of arms and military equipment under the GOZ in 2016 were purchased without competitive procedures,” he stressed.

The interlocutor of the agency also stressed that despite the obvious improvement in the situation with the rearmament of the Armed Forces in comparison with the pre-war period, this process is taking place against the backdrop of “chaotic imports”, as well as low level of military-technical cooperation and restraint of foreign partners in transferring technologies and component base of weapons and military equipment to the Ukrainian side.

At the same time, the lack of equal working conditions in the internal defense market for private and state-owned enterprises of the defense industry, the lack of a full-fledged public-private partnership in the industry, and erroneous approaches to military acceptance of arms and military equipment, significantly limit the capabilities of the national defense industry in solving the tasks of effective rearmament of the army, .Badrak.

According to the Executive Director of the League, the launch of the process of creating high-tech weapons and models in Ukraine on the basis of the project approach should be the basis for the effective rearmament of the Armed Forces: “Through an open competition for a qualitatively new weapon model for a particular financial resource.” When developers protect their projects in potential R & D Based on transparent parameters, “he said.

As V. Badrak noted, the League of Defense Enterprises has already informed about its proposals on optimization of the rearmament process of the army, including the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Created in late 2016, the non-governmental organization League of Defense Enterprises unites several dozen private defense companies in Ukraine. The main direction of the work of the League is the participation of its members in the effective and qualitative rearmament of the APU.

According to the Ukrainian military department, in 2016, private defense companies accounted for more than 50% of the GOZ executors.