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Commenting on a recent arms show in Russia, an official Ukrainian military publication has suggested that Russia and Ukraine seem to be ending their opposition on armoured vehicles and helicopter markets. It said that even friendliness has appeared. The following is the text of the report by Nataliya Pechorina, entitled "End of confrontation? Ukraine has new chance to get monopoly on Soviet Mi helicopter upgrade market", published by the Ukrainian military daily Narodna Armiya on 28 October; subheadings are as published:
The most critical competitive confrontation between Ukraine and Russia on the armaments and military hardware market always used to be observed in two segments: helicopter machinery and armoured machinery. It was precisely these two types of armaments which were supplied abroad on a large scale during the Soviet period, and facilities for their designing, production and upgrading are available in both countries.
But tendencies over the last year testify to the effect that open competition has whittled down, and it may be being replaced by fruitful cooperation. The two sides probably needed almost 20 years to understand simple things.
Tank friendliness
The eighth international exhibition of armaments, military hardware and ammunition was held recently in Nizhniy Tagil, Russia. Ukrainian intermediary [state-owned arms trader] Ukrspetseksport presented the most recent developments of Ukrainian tank builders there: the basic combat tank Oplot [Bulwark], along with [infantry fighting vehicle] BMP-1M with Shkval [Squall] combat module and the T-72B tank. The Ukrainian tank Oplot was presented in Russia for the first time, but it did not provoke a storm of criticism that could have been expected in view of the battles waged in news media where the features of the tanks were compared in favour of one type (depending on territorial and state belonging of news media). Everything has already changed: during the exhibition the heads of the Ukrainian delegation held talks on cooperation in armoured machinery sphere with Russian Federation Deputy Defence Minister Dmitriy Bulgakov.
Besides this, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has said that the tank engine 5TDFM designed by the Kharkiv engine building design bureau has got great market prospects. One could hardly imagine statements of this kind even a year ago, just like crushing criticism of Russian tank building industry by this...