Employees of the Makarov Pivdenny Machine Building Plant (Pivdenmash, Dnipropetrovsk) have asked the Ukrainian authorities to take urgent measures to guarantee state orders for missile production.

An open address of the plant's employees to the Ukrainian president, parliament, government, National Security and Defense Council and authorities in Dnipropetrovsk region was published by the press service of Pivdenmash.

The plant said that due to the halt of traditional cooperation with Russia in missile production and insufficient loading of production facilities as part of the realization of international projects, continued missile production at Pivdenmash and in Ukraine is only possible if the defense order is provided.

The options for settling the tasks of loading the profile production capacities initiated by Pivdenmash include the realization of the project to create a light dual-purpose launch vehicle. The realization of the project which has good exports and commercial prospects does not require special infrastructure: the vehicle could be launched from a ship or a truck.

The production facilities could be loaded as part of the defense order. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been asked to provide the plant with the state order in autumn 2015, however more than six months have passed since Poroshenko was asked and the plant has still not received the order.

"The state should honestly say in public if Ukraine needs space rockets, missiles and dual-purpose vehicles. If the decision is positive, Pivdenmash must urgently receive the state order for production of missiles. If the decision is negative, the state should give green light to liquidate the production facilities," reads the address.