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The collapse of Yuzhmash: Pots instead of space rockets
Views:The famous industrial giant of Dnepropetrovsk, the Yuzhmash plant, which produced space rockets, is in a state close to a coma. Ties with the main partner - Russia - have been severed. Specialists go on unpaid leave, occasionally receiving handouts from the authorities. There are no prospects for changing the situation.
On March 13, UAH 25,3 million was credited to the company’s accounts; the devalued hryvnia managed to pay off a small part of the team’s salary arrears. This is minuscule, because Yuzhmash’s debts as of January 1, 2015 amounted to about UAH 640 million. More than UAH 140 million is needed for salaries, related payments and social benefits alone.
Employees do not believe in the authorities’ promises to revive Yuzhmash. The main indicator: there are still almost no orders. Assistant to the general director of the plant for general issues, Vladimir Tkachenko, explains: due to Russia’s refusal of Zenit missiles, Yuzhmash is losing 80% of its revenue.
At the end of March, the last launch of “Satan”, assembled in Dnepropetrovsk, was carried out from the Russian cosmodrome in the Orenburg region. This concludes the contract. Now, according to the plans of top management, Yuzhmash will begin producing trolleybuses. As engineers joke, it’s good that it’s not pans. After all, the plant in Novomoskovsk suffered precisely this fate.
Among optimists, however, there are rumors that Dnepropetrovsk residents will receive a large order from the Ministry of Defense. Workers laugh that the government is keeping the details secret because it has not yet figured out how to load the plant, since Yuzhmash initially had a clear purpose - to work for the rocket and space industry. And if the operating principle of the plant is changed now, the country will lose its part in the global space business forever. After all, millions of dollars are spent abroad on training specialists of the same class as those who work at Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant.
The leadership of Ukraine, severing ties with Russia, did not bother to find new partners at the same time. By the way, Europe itself, despite the sanctions, continues to work with Russia. And Kyiv decided to ruin its own technological potential and waste valuable personnel. Everyone in the same Russian Federation is already interested in them, offering Yuzhmash residents a job at the Yekaterinburg Automation Research and Production Association, which develops control systems for Soyuz-2 launch vehicles.
Dnepropetrovsk has always been proud of Yuzhmash, the name of the plant thundered throughout the world. However, new times seem to completely remove Ukraine from the list of space powers.
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