Leading Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar is building a production facility in Ukraine, Kyiv's envoy to Ankara Vasyl Bodnar has said in an interview.
Calling Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) Bayraktars as "a legend" of its resistance against Russia, Bodnar said that the field of defence technologies remains one of the drivers of Ukraine-Turkey relations.
"The plant will be built. Just a week ago, the government approved a bilateral agreement and sent it to the parliament for ratification, the agreement on the construction of the plant itself," the diplomat said in an interview to RBC Ukraine.
"The owner of the Baikar company created his Ukrainian company in Ukraine, this company has already purchased a plot of land, they have developed the project of the plant itself and intend to implement it to the end, as it was almost a personal commitment of the company owners to make this production in Ukraine," he added in the interview.
The envoy mentioned that be it engines, spare parts, wheels or other hi-tech material, a significant part of the models that will be produced at this plant will have components of Ukrainian production.
Last month, the Volodymyr Zelenskyy government said that it will send to the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) a draft law on the ratification of the agreement between Ukraine and Turkey on cooperation in the field of high technologies, aviation and space industries.
"Among other things, this will make it possible to build a factory in Ukraine for the production and maintenance of the famous Bayraktar drones," announced Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal during a meeting of the cabinet ministers on July 19.
The Turkish Bayraktar TB2 strike drones are a huge favourite with the Ukrainian army ever since an agreement to purchase them was signed between Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in January 2019.
The latest attack drones can be armed with modern high-precision missile weapons for the destruction of armoured vehicles, engineering and fortification structures, as well as naval targets, Poroshenko had said at the time of the signing of the agreement.
The Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Bayraktar TB2, which, according to its manufacturer, offers all cutting-edge solutions required to carry out surgical-precision strikes preventing widespread damage to close areas, became a game-changer initially when Russia launched its 'Special Military Operation' in Ukraine on February 24.
"We are very proud, and it is very touching for us to be one of the symbols of this big resistance in Ukraine," Baykar's CEO Haluk Bayraktar said in an interview with CNN, last month.
Recent reports suggest that after Tajikistan showed interest in buying the Bayraktar TB2 drones, the number of countries signing a deal with Baykar reached 19.
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