The President of Ukraine met with the CEO of the Turkish company Baykar to discuss cooperation in the defense sector
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of Turkey’s Baykar.
This was reported by the press service of the President’s Office.
The participants of the meeting focused on further cooperation of Ukraine with the company in strengthening the defense capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The parties also discussed the details of the construction of the Baykar factory in Ukraine and manufacturing new products using Ukrainian parts.
Zelenskyy highly appreciated the contribution of Haluk Bayraktar and his company in boosting the power of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the fight against the aggressor and awarded him with the Order of Merit, first class.
“Everyone in Ukraine knows what Bayraktar is, knows your company. Thank you, thank you, President Erdoğan for your support and the support of the citizens of Turkey in this war against Russian aggression,” the Head of State said.
The president awarded Haluk Bayraktar with the Order of Merit of the 1st Class.
In August, it became known that the Turkish company Baykar plans to build in Ukraine not just a factory for the production of strike drones Bayraktar TB2, but also a research center and an advanced production center.
“We see Ukraine as our strategic partner. So we have long-term plans regarding the projects with Ukraine, and we’ve had a lot of joint projects, actually. We, as Baykar, embarked on building a factory in Ukraine, a research center, and a manufacturing excellence center where we would want to build all the systems,” said Haluk Bayraktar in an exclusive interview with the director of the Come Back Alive Foundation, Taras Chmut.
In July, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada that will allow the construction of a factory for the production and maintenance of drones by Baykar in Ukraine.
It`s goes about ratification of the agreement between Ukraine and Turkey on cooperation in the field of high technologies, aviation and space industries. The document was signed by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov and the Minister of Industry and Technology of Turkey Mustafa Varank in early February 2022.
This agreement should contribute to Ukraine-Turkey cooperation in the development, production and operation of UAVs of the Bayraktar family. The contract provides for the participation of Ukrainian specialists in the process of working on unmanned aerial vehicles.