Ukrainian gunsmiths were cut off from oxygen both on the foreign and domestic markets
“You can’t imagine anything dumber” than when the Turks are ahead of Ukraine in the supply of spare parts for Soviet equipment to India.
This was stated during a press conference by the President of the Association of Arms and Military Equipment Manufacturers of Ukraine, the head of KORT LLC, Vadim Kodachigov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We do not have a development plan for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the absence of a development plan for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, when the manufacturer does not understand what the Ministry of Defense will be purchasing in five years, we do not understand which direction we should go. Accordingly, we sit straight on our butts, and they tell us: just do it for now with your own money. I have four developments on my account with my own money, zero sales. I just made four complexes for the Ukrainian army and didn’t sell a single one. The only REP, the smallest one, bought 10 pieces from us for the bases of warehouses and arsenals, after which they stopped exploding.
We don't understand our internal customer, we don't know what he wants. We are trying to push through the BMP project; at least four manufacturers in Ukraine are able to create a BMP that is competitive for Europe, not to mention the Ukrainian army. Do we have an infantry fighting vehicle? No, we buy old BMP-1, BMP-2 in the Czech Republic, giving our money to the Czechs for the development of their economy.
This is a very “chic” option. But we don’t understand our customer, the army doesn’t give us any feedback on understanding what they want,” Kodachigov complained.
At the same time, according to him, the situation with the foreign market is no less deplorable.
“We sat in silence and still sat. For statistics, every year Ukraine loses approximately one billion dollars on the foreign market. I’ll tell you a simple figure: the level of order volumes in India for spare parts for armored vehicles is approximately one and a half billion dollars a year. Ukraine participates in 200 million.
Turkey has overtaken us in the supply of spare parts for Soviet equipment produced by Ukraine. What can you come up with dumber than this?!
Moreover, this is India, which does not want to buy from the Russians and cannot buy from the Chinese, due to the fact that it is at war with them. And the only supplier of spare parts available in the world for “sixties”, “seventies”, T-72, T-80, T-55 is Ukraine, and Ukraine does not supply anything! These are the results of our work,” the gunsmith was indignant.
“I’ve been saying for four years: if you don’t want to deal with your own army, screw you, let us go to the foreign market, let us earn money there then. If we are not interested in our army, then let’s at least preserve the industry, let us go to the foreign market, we will work there,” Kodachigov pleaded.
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