New Ukrainian weapons, equipment incorporate NATO standards – Turchynov
The development and creation of new weapons and military equipment in Ukraine is carried out in accordance with NATO standards, Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov has said.
"In the development of new weapons, military technology, we immediately lay down the standards of NATO," he said at a round table on state military orders in Kyiv on Thursday.
Turchynov said that since 2014 Ukraine's military-industrial complex has been one of the priorities of the NSDC and financing of the defense sector has increased 19.5 times since then.
He said in conditions of military confrontation, the resource that Ukraine owns is not enough to ensure full-fledged defense and security of the country.
"One of the priorities of our state is the unconditional increase in gross domestic product, the strengthening of the national economy, without which the defense complex cannot develop," he said.
Turchynov said it is impossible to significantly improve the quality of Ukrainian weapons, military equipment without a systemic investment, a systemic innovation resource for the industrial complex.
"Here, of course, we need to talk about real problems that need to be solved. This is a question of the corporatization of our state defense enterprises, the modernization of their fixed assets. The myriad of tasks also includes new technologies for managing work organization. These are numerous tasks that need to be addressed ... today," he said, adding that more than 50% of the state defense order is fulfilled by private enterprises.
Turchynov said he is convinced that significant changes in the structure of the military-industrial complex will be possible only with the support of the Verkhovna Rada.
The NSDC head emphasized that, in fact, in Ukraine there is no "real competition both in the formation and implementation of the state defense order," adding that corruption risks increase significantly as a result, along with the danger of receiving low-quality or outdated products at unnecessarily high prices.
