The Defense Ministry of Ukraine has not decided on the ways of cooperation with foreign arms suppliers for a new corvette of the Ukrainian naval forces.
"We're developing formulae for cooperation [with foreign arms suppliers]. The final decision is yet to be taken. Our task number one today is to construct the platform [of the warship]," the head of the department for the designing and procurement of arms and military equipment at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Andriy Artiushenko, told journalists in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Asked by an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, whether the ministry has revised the previously approved cooperation formula for projects with foreign partners, the official said: "We should treat everything foreign in a very careful way. First of all, I think, we will focus on cooperation inside Ukraine."
Artiushenko also expressed hope that the lead ship will be passed to the Ukrainian Navy in 2016, according to the plan.
As reported, in December 2009, Ukraine's Defense Ministry and Chornomorsky Shipbuilding Yard (Mykolaiv) after a tender conducted by the ministry signed a contract on the fulfillment of a state order to build corvettes for the Ukrainian Navy. Mykolaiv-based Research and Design Center designed the project.
The cruising range of the corvette is 30 days, allowing it to sail not only in the Black Sea, but also in the Mediterranean. Its tonnage is 2,500 tonnes.
The lead ship will be delivered to the customer in 2016. It is also planned to construct four more corvettes by 2021.
In November 2011, the Ukrainian government approved a budget of UAH 16.2 billion for the corvette state program until 2021.
At present, Chornomorsky Shipbuilding Yard is building the Volodymyr Velyky corvette.
According to the cooperation formula that has been approved and presented by the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, of the total volume of cooperation under the program, the share of foreign suppliers will be 28%.
Ukraine's partners in the project are the international manufacturers of ship weapons from France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and South Africa. Among them the ministry mentioned DCNS, MBDA, and EuroTorp. It was planned that diesel generators for the corvette could be supplied from the United States. Ukraine does not produce ship weapons.
In 2012 the ministry stated that it planned to optimize the corvette program.
Then Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin said that the ministry did "a great deal of work on the replacement of imported components of the corvette with domestic products."
In late December 2012, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Pavlo Lebedev as Ukraine's defense minister.
