Ukraine announces plans to develop new fighter | IHS Jane's 360

Conventional wisdom holds that at present Ukraine lacks the economic wherewithal to complete such a project on its own. The country also lacks the requisite relationships with foreign suppliers that it would need to fill out the many onboard systems required for a fighter design. Ukrainian industry has long been interested in building these kinds of partnerships with Western companies, but two main obstacles have consistently prevented this kind of co-operation.

One is the consistent complaint from almost all Western companies that the Ukrainian state-run defence trade and arms export monopoly Ukroboronprom acts more like its Russian counterpart, Rosoboronexport, in demanding control of all interactions, funding, and other investments. Brovchenko himself is a former Ukroboronprom official and was "surgically inserted into the Ministry of Economic Development in order to make sure that no decisions were made that would erode the total control that the state arms trading agency holds over all defence business", said one US executive based in Ukraine. Other Western experts on Ukraine's defence sector have called for Ukroboronprom to be abolished altogether because of the problems it creates.

The other issue is the lack of transparency in Ukraine's defence sector. Charges of graft and corruption in the country's defence procurement system have been difficult to prove because almost the entirety of the acquisition process is classified. Officials from NATO and other international agencies working with the Ukrainian government now state that the government in Kiev wants to diminish any kind of oversight even further by classifying plans for a programme of modernisation of the defence plants in Ukraine.

"A good question might be which powerful individuals may be benefitting from this programme," said one Western analyst who follows the defence reform process in Ukraine. "Motor Sich's long-time director, [Vyacheslav] Boguslayev, is one of the most influential political figures in Ukraine, and Poroshenko needs to build alliances among the power brokers. Putting a lot of resources into his company for the development of this engine could go a long way towards accomplishing that."