The WEG notes that currently Southeast Asia media is knee-deep in hoax and fakes claiming that Ukraine's defense companies allegedly lack capacities and potential, being no competition within the international markets of arms and military equipment.
In that same vein, Russia's Rosoboronexport together with the Belarus BSVT-New Technologies allegedly spread deception about Ukrainian defense plant Artem. According to these sources, production certification of R-27 medium-range aviation guided missiles has been revoked. Meanwhile, in a bid to compromise yet another Ukraine's enterprise, Radionix, Russian intelligence pundits are spreading reports about Ukraine's new optical homing allegedly failing on R-27 missiles.
For the time being, Ukraine has completely abandoned the use of Russian components. Missile modifications are distinguished by the use of two types of homing heads – semi-active radar and infrared (thermal). Back in 1984, the missile was emulated with the Soviet Air Force, while variants with radar and thermal homing heads are being used in around 20 countries, applied for Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters. The missiles were produced by Ukraine's Artem, which back in Soviet era championed the serial assembly of aircraft missiles. To this end, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine remained the main supplier of R-27 to world markets, having exported in total over 5 000 units. The main customers are states whose air forces fly Su-27 and MiG-29. It is a huge market which opens a number of opportunities for Ukraine, asserting it a major competitor for Russia.
That is why, after the Soviet break-up, a trend came up for Ukraine and Russia confronting each other in development and production of active homing heads. The then leadership of Artem stated that Ukraine had offered the Russian side a promising project for the joint modernization of R-27 missile, but despite assurances of "friendship" and military-technical cooperation that proposal never enjoyed support. Russia placed a bet on own production of air-to-air missiles with own active homing heads. For the record, control unit of the Russian R-77 missile was developed and produced by Ukraine's Luch Design Bureau, which once and again proved great dependence of Russia's defense complex on Ukraine.
After the outbreak of the war in the east of the country, Ukraine absolutely dismissed cooperation with Russia on development of active radar homing heads. So, Ukraine's defense industry independently decided to launch own production of aircraft missile components. By 2014, all domestic capacities working on semi-active and active homing heads, both being a key part of modern missiles, were concentrated at Ukraine's Radionix, which, together with Luch, is now working to modernize existing and create new samples of anti-aircraft small and medium range missiles.
Summing up, Russia's defense industry is crippled with massive debts and systemic corruption-related failures. Instead of working on its own scientific and technological potential, Russia is pouring more funds into intelligence services, tasked with pursuing aggressive information campaigns against Ukraine and other potential competitors. Now that a number of Ukraine's new military products are entering global markets, concerned actors should make sure to filter out Russia's dirty campaigns and opt for personally verifying the product quality. After all, Ukraine's Artem is an exclusive manufacturer of R-27 missiles of various modifications, owning a complete set of design documentation.
mPolska24
