KIEV, April 4 (AVN) - The Ukrainian defence industry is ready for both co-operation and competition with Russia, chairman of the state commission on defence industry issues Vladimir Gorbulin said on Wednesday.
"Co-operation between Ukrainian defence industry enterprises and Russian R&D institutes, design bureaux, weapons and military equipment plants is a more dialectical than political issue," Gorbulin told a news conference.
Asked by the Military News Agency whether Ukraine profits from entering foreign arms markets in co-operation with Russia, Gorbulin said Ukraine was planning to design and promote weapons on its own in several spheres. "In those sectors of arms trade co-operation with Russian companies is not only admissible, but rather desirable. At the same time in the spheres where it is possible to earn money together it should be done," he stressed.
Valery Kazakov, deputy chairman of the state industrial policy committee in charge of the defence industry, said the most promising spheres of Russian-Ukrainian co-operation was aircraft building, for instance, development of AN-70, AN-140 and TU-334 planes.
Kazakov told reporters that Ukraine and Russia were interested in further negotiations on modernisation of air-to-air missiles that were once supplied to third countries. "It is a very profitable business," he said. Ukrainian companies Arsenal and Radar, as well as the Artyom plant, are involved in it.