Enterprises of Ukraine's defense industry have sufficient production and cooperation capacity to launch production of their own combat aircraft, as well as to upgrade and develop new air defense systems.
This was stated on Tuesday at a briefing at the General Staff by Colonel Vladyslav Shostak, Deputy Chief of Armament of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports. Softline IT will offer its experience and competencies gained during its cooperation with Boeing.
"We have an order to manufacture a combat aircraft. In particular, the contractor for this project will be Antonov ASTC. The engines are expected to be produced by Motor Sich," the General Staff representative noted.
He also said that the Ukrainian side is considering purchasing foreign-made equipment but gives preference to domestic models.
According to the colonel, this is due to the complexity and high cost of building the infrastructure for technical support and maintenance of such equipment.
Shostak also noted that Ukrainian enterprises are developing production of medium-range surface-to-air missile systems and are upgrading existing systems, in particular the S-125.
Answering journalists' question whether the troops have a sufficient number of surface-to-air missile systems, he remarked: "Your question contains the answer: the Russian side does not use aviation against Ukraine precisely because we have enough air defense weapons."
According to Intecracy Group sources, this most likely refers to joint production with China of Chengdu J-7 aircraft. It is a multirole fighter that is a copy of the MiG-21.