As Russia's war with Ukraine rages on, there is increasing pressure in the country and abroad for Ukraine to be given lethal weapons. At the same time, Ukraine is still a major arms exporter, and experts say most of the weapons needed to fend off Russian aggression, can, and should, be found in-country.
Former career officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
and military expert Oleksiy Arestovych told the Kyiv Post that arms from
abroad, while helpful, wouldn’t necessarily be enough.
“It is possible (for Ukraine) to get weapons from
abroad. But it won’t be easy to get them in the amounts the army needs,”
Arestovich said. “To change the situation drastically, we need the
means for reconnaissance, locating the enemy, and communication.”
And while Ukraine’s army is currently being resupplied
with weapons, the weapons themselves aren’t new – it’s mainly a process of
“bringing to combat capability the country’s available old military equipment
in storage,” the military expert said. “Old artillery pieces and tanks are
being brought back into a condition in which they can fire and drive around.”
Weapons aren’t the only thing the army needs, of
course. Even new uniforms can have a significant impact on morale, while access
to spy satellites would be crucial for reconnaissance purposes.
Director of the Center for Army, Conversion and
Disarmament Valentin Badrak told the Kyiv Post there are two ways Ukraine could
fully supply its army: via arms imports and via military-technical cooperation.
“At the moment, the Ukrainian defense industry
can meet 35 percent of the army’s supply requirements, taking into account the
newly worked out production of armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and so on,”
Badrak said.
He continued: “That’s not really a bad
percentage, given that Ukraine was a country that traditionally only produced
parts for weapons, such as aircraft engines and gas turbines. Only 8-12 percent
of the country’s defense production had full-cycle production military systems
at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union (in 1991).”
As for military-technical cooperation, experts say
that this would help Ukraine create and develop the kind of weapons systems it
needs to deter aggression, such as air defense systems.
But current defense orders for new weapons are focused
on solving the problems Ukraine’s military faces on today’s battlefields, said
Badrak. He said this mainly concerned making the army more mobile, better at
detecting enemy targets, and delivering more effective artillery strikes.
“If Ukraine were to invest $500-$700 million a
year on rearmament, it would be possible to achieve adequate levels on all the
major type of arms in a five-to-seven-year period,” Badrak said.
But even with financial aid and a supply of some
weapons from abroad, Ukraine still won’t be able to meet all of its defense
needs, Badrak said. For that, some technical know-how is required.
“We need the kind of military-technical cooperation
in which Ukraine joins the international club of arms producers, and (joins)
various programs associated with the acquisition of technologies and
licenses.” Badrak said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is still a big weapons exporter.
According to recently released data from the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, which tracks the arms trade, in 2014 Ukraine sold weapons
worth $664 million. In early 2015 state arms company Ukroboronprom said Ukraine
should retain its place as one of the world’s largest arms exporters. This has
government backing – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in May 2015 said
Ukraine’s goal is to become one of the world’s top-five largest exporters of
arms.
Despite sanctions imposed on Russia, including
cooperation in defense, Moscow bought defense equipment worth about $33.2
billion last year, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in April.
Russian exports reached a record-setting $13.2 billion of hardware in 2014,
according to arms export agency Rosoboronexport.
That a country like Ukraine desperately is in need of
new weapons is still exporting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of hardware
might seem contradictory, but according to Arestovych, maintaining a healthy
arms export trade in fact contributes to Ukraine’s overall defense.
“Exports allows us to preserve our scientific and
technical base; specialists continue to work and develop (weapons),”
Arestovych said. “It’s appropriate as long as it doesn’t come at the
expense of the country’s own defense capability.”
That could be why Russia in recent years has been
trying to oust Ukraine from some of its traditional strongpoints in the global
arms market.
“Over the last few years Ukraine has been a serious
competitor (to Russia), because we have similar technical schools and related
technical terms,” Badrak said. “The range of light armored
vehicles (that Ukraine) created from scratch has surpassed that of Russia. We
had contracts with countries whom Russia couldn’t reach.”
KyivPost
staff writer Valeriya Golovina can be reached at [email protected].
