You're reading: NSDC developing state defense program to improve armaments, military equipment by 2020

Secretary of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Oleksandr Turchynov has noted the necessity of ensuring national defense requirements for modern types of armaments and military equipment, as well as the allocation of money for military hardware from the defense budget.

According to the NSDC press service, at an inter-agency meeting on state target program for the development of armaments and military equipment by 2020, Turchynov said that the battle experience gained in the Anti-terrorist Operation (ATO) had shown a number of drawbacks affecting Ukrainian military hardware.

“It concerns the lack of both new and modern types of arms and means of intelligence, digital connection, etc. Thus, our military-industrial complex faces a huge task to ensure the country’s needs for modern types of armament and military equipment that must correspond to the challenges of the time,” he said.

“Weapons and the equipment our army has today were designed and produced last century, therefore our task is to provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with everything necessary, which corresponds with the challenges of the 21st century. Our weapons and equipment must be equal to or better than their Russian counterparts,” Turchynov said.

According to him, the program provides an answer to and understanding of the results that will come in five years.

“Such strategic questions must be approached in a systematic and planned way, as the development of the military industrial complex foresees serious expenses that should be planned ahead,” he said, adding that planning of the state’s defense order would be based on indicators that would be approved by the target defense program.

Turchynov also said that the approved program had to be the basis for planning defense-related expense in the budgets of upcoming years.

“In turn, the indicators defined in the program would be the basis for military industrial complex’s development until 2020, long-term contracts and tasks for Ukrainian scientists, designers and producers,” Turchynov said.