National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
Oleksandr Turchynov: Ukraine is capable of creating modern effective weapons
Ukrainian scientists, designers and production workers have proved that they are capable of creating modern effective weapons in a short time. This was stated by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov during the ceremony of presenting state awards and honorary NSDC distinctions to representatives of defense enterprises - "Luch" DB, "Artem", "Vizar", "Motor-Sich", "Orizon-Navigation", "UkrInMash", "Radionics", "Mashgidroprivod" and others, which ensured the implementation of the missile program.
At a meeting with the developers of missile weapons, Mr. Turchynov reminded that after our country had given up strategic nuclear weapons in exchange for "a mere scrap of the Budapest memorandum, Ukraine was deprived not only of nuclear potential but also of its delivery vehicles, which could be effectively used to defend the country and hit hostile targets without the use of nuclear weapons".
"Strategic aviation, missile systems of operational-tactical level particularly were destroyed. Not a single cruise missile was left on armament of the Armed Forces of Ukraine", - the NSDC Secretary said stressing that one should also add the systematic long-term destruction of our defense capabilities, in particular enterprises of the defense-industrial complex.
The NSDC Secretary recalled how at the beginning of March 2014 when Russia's aggression was unleashed, he as an acting President of Ukraine, gathered the leaders of defense enterprises to discuss "how to restore in the shortest time the defense potential of our country, providing the army with modern weapons and equipment".
"One of the first tasks to solve was to create an analog of a powerful multiple launch rocket system "Smerch", as missiles to it were sufficient only for several weeks of active military operations", - Mr. Turchynov noticed adding that then few believed that this could be done in the shortest terms.
The NSDC Secretary emphasized that thanks to scientists, engineers of the "Luch" DB and its subcontractors, the "Vilkha" missile system was developed and put on armament, with the system being "capable of precisely destroying targets with guided missiles and excelling Russian analogs".
"It is important that our specialists did not stop at this point and continue to work on improving the combat characteristics of the system", - he said adding that the tests of "Vilkha-M" and "Vilkha-R" have already been started and will continue next week.
According to Mr. Turchynov, given Russia's aggression in the Black and Azov seas, one of the priorities of our country is the reliable protection of sea borders, and "this task must be completed by the "Neptune" mobile cruise missile system, with its missiles capable of destroying any maritime targets not only in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov but also in their base ports".
"As a person directly concerned with the missile program, I know like nobody else in what difficult conditions it was necessary to restore the missile shield of our country, but joint efforts made it possible to complete these strategic tasks in an incredibly short time", - the Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine noticed expressing gratitude to the workers of defense industry who contributed to this.