UKRAINE-DEFENSE-INDUSTRY-TASKS

Kyiv, June 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine will carry out the technical re-equipment of its armed forces, relying on the capabilities and potential of the national defense industry, which obliges the state;s leadership to urgently resolve problems in the defense sector, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Andriy Kliuyev has said.

“Of course, in matters of the re-equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other military formations in Ukraine, the leading role belongs to the national defense industry…. The current situation in the defense industry requires balanced, urgent and decisive actions,” he said at a meeting on the work and development of the defense industry in Kyiv on Thursday.

Kliuyev said that systemic problems in the domestic defense industry had formed over many years and “they have their roots in the early 1990s,” and “their consequences have an integrated influence on the overall economic and social spheres of the state.”

He said that Ukraine’s non-aligned status requires a new level of responsibility in approaches to the questions of ensuring the defense capability of the state, “especially in the rapidly changing political and economic situation in the world.”

Among the key negative trends in the defense industry that have to be eliminated, Kliuyev named the reduction in the scientific and technological potential and technological level of the defense industry, its aging production facilities, job cuts, and the loss of skilled personnel and the system for their training.

“The president of Ukraine and state leadership are fully aware of the magnitude of this threat and are taking systematic measures to neutralize it,” he said.

[UA EUROPE EEU EMRG DEF]

PA

14:45:52 EET-2