Kamyshin: Ukraine's defense industry moving from receiving Western assistance to joint business
This was stated in a commentary to Ukrinform on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleksandr Kamyshin.
"You understand that we will never have cooperation with Russia, Belarus, and some other neighboring countries in the east," the minister said.
He stressed that the path of the Ukrainian defense industry as a whole is integration with Western partners, into the ecosystem of their production. To this end, according to him, Ukraine is developing cooperation in two basic areas - the European Union and NATO countries.
"We are becoming full-fledged partners for them. We are moving from asking for help and thanking for it to developing a joint business," Kamyshin said.
In this context, he noted that Ukraine has already started implementing projects and initiatives with individual countries and is building various forms of cooperation on partnership terms. The Minister clarified that this includes the purchase of technologies and the organization of joint production in Ukraine, as well as the creation of joint ventures protected from Russian attacks.
"It is important for us to develop this industry in Ukraine, despite the fact that we are constantly under fire. We will organize this production in such a way as to continue working even during the war," the official stressed.
He added that Ukraine is looking for ways "to be useful to them (Western partners – ed.), and for them to be useful to us."
As Ukrinform reported, an official representative office of Ukroboronprom was opened in Washington, which will perform multilateral functions to deepen cooperation between the defense production sectors of Ukraine and the United States.
