ABU DHABI- Yuriy Husev, Director-General of State Concern Ukroboronprom, has said that during the coronavirus pandemic, it is very important to hold exhibitions like International Defence Exhibition (IDEX), which is one of the biggest exhibitions in the world focused on military cooperation.

"For us it is very important to show our potential for cooperation with different countries," the head of the biggest state-owned company in the defense industry sphere in Ukraine, told the Emirates News Agency (WAM) in an interview on the sidelines of IDEX.

"We had successful negotiations with companies from the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia. For us it is a big chance to move forward with our partners, start new projects and to have deep cooperation with our partners," he added.

"We have a lot of proposals for our potential partners including missile systems, armored vehicles, tanks.

"We have one of the best tanks in the world, Oplot-M. We have a good BTR presence here in IDEX [The BTR-4 Bucephalus is an amphibious 8x8 wheeled armoured personnel carrier].

"IDEX is a good chance to have new contracts. We already signed two contracts with Pakistan and UAE." He went on to say, "We still have some negotiations with the future products. We have a lot of directions." He said that President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had a "very successful" visit to UAE last weekend.

"We have started strategic cooperation with EDGE group [EDGE, a UAE advanced technology group for defence] and Ukrainian state-owned defence conglomerate UkrOboronProm and we have a lot of directions for cooperation. It will include missile systems, tanks, air space and we are moving forward."

Last week EDGE signed a tri-party strategic cooperation agreement with Ukrainian state-owned defence conglomerate UkrOboronProm, and Ukrspecexport, a Ukrainian state-owned arms trading company. The agreement will enable the three entities to exchange and develop advanced technologies that could lead to over US$1 billion worth of investments.

 

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