Deutsche Welle announced a few days ago that the Presidential Administration was hiring foreign armament experts among others.
Poroshenko attended a demonstration of Ukraine’s anti-tank guided weapon Stugna and confirmed the acceptance of this weapon for use in armed forces.
Why then ask the United States to deliver anti-tank guided weapons like the Javelin when Ukraine is able to design its counterpart in Ukraine? Why ask Western nations to deliver equipment that the country is able to manufacture?
Cartoonists are having a field day showing the Ministry of Defense crying for weapons and the president selling weapons on export markets. I usually like cartoonists’ work but will have hard words:they did not understand anything to the situation.
The war against the Russian hybrid army occupying eastern Ukraine costs $5 to $10 million a day.
Ousted President Viktor Yanukovych has emptied Ukraine’s coffers.
The military industry has been working for products needed by Russia, paid at a price fixed by Russia and money evaporated before reaching the accounts of manufacturers (it is estimated that 80 percent of the money disappeared)
Hundreds of million dollars budgeted for research and development found their way to the pockets of Yanukovych’s family and their accomplices, resulting in projects that do not even have a blueprint available when officially a few million dollars have been spent in these projects.
The only way to produce weapons for the country is to export weapons in order to have hard currency coming in.
It has always been the case everywhere in the world. Export deals allow the producer to become more cost-efficient. Look at American fighter jets. Quite often an armament is adopted for service by a nation only to demonstrate it is serviceable and not a prototype, allowing a better campaign to sell it. The French Rafale is an example that comes to mind. France certification and adoption tests are so hard to go through that most of the country’s traditional customers buy after it is adopted.
Ukraine has no choice than to export to support its industry.
There is a huge potential in a country where skilled workers in a large industrial base still exist, where the labor cost is lower than costs in Western nations. The failure of many military and high tech products that are made in Russia, by contrast, show the difference with Ukraine. Rockets, the new main battle tank and furtive fighters have all demonstrated low quality control when not simply mistakes in design.
That is one of the reasons “humanitarian convoys” have removed equipment from the Donbas, robbing everything in the factories located in this area and the reason Moscow’s goal is to occupy the left bank of the Dnipro River and the coastal area where heavy industry, the military industry and naval industries are concentrated.
Russia, by contrast, sells mainly low-tech products, assault rifles and artillery. The only competitive advantage is the price. The core of Russia’s export markets are African nations, the case of S300 air defense system being an exception.
Therefore, I advise the cartoonists to read this column before deciding to make a joke of Poroshenko’s decision to export.
Edmond Huet is an engineer and armament expert who helped the Ukrainian government identify units and armaments used by the government against demonstrators in the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014. He lives in Kyiv.
