Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a press conference in Kyiv on August 24, 2024. | Photo credit: AFP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy advocated greater cooperation with India in high-end technologies in several sectors such as agriculture, cyber security and defence, as well as co-production of drones, electronic warfare systems, etc. He said he discussed these issues during his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At the press conference, Mr. Zelenskyy said Ukraine has raised the level of its private companies, especially in areas such as drones, maritime drones and cybersecurity. “And I told the prime minister, we would be very ready to share these products with you and we would be happy if it could be co-produced, and we decided that our teams would start working on different issues. During the war, I think this is very important because we need to strengthen the war economy… Of course we need a win-win situation between our countries.”
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In response to a question, various high-end technologies were explained in detail. the hindu“It’s agriculture, demining, medicine, security like drones, electronic warfare systems, a lot of things, its connections… against cyber attacks. We are ready to talk about it, maritime drones, a lot of different technologies. We had good agreements before the war. We are ready for all this and we are ready to co-produce for both our markets,” he said.
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“Of course we can do a lot more after the war because today the priority is to save ourselves,” he said. “But we are ready to start this work, the war will end anyway and we know that…”
India has a large stockpile of military equipment of both Russian and Ukrainian origin. Following the war in Ukraine, India had to halt supplies and spares for some time. As a result, the Indian armed forces attempted to diversify and reduce dependency by turning to domestic companies and seeking an alternative vendor base in other countries.
Some joint ventures between Ukrainian manufacturers and the Indian private sector are also producing some spare parts as well as carrying out maintenance in India.
On defence cooperation, the joint statement issued after the talks underscored the importance of defence cooperation between the two leaders and said they agreed to continue working towards building stronger ties between defence entities in the two countries, including “joint cooperation and partnerships for manufacturing in India and cooperation in emerging areas”. The two sides agreed to hold the second meeting of the India-Ukrainian Joint Working Group on Military-Technical Cooperation, established under the 2012 Defence Cooperation Agreement, in India in the near future.
Focus on agriculture
The joint statement and signed agreements show that agriculture and pharmaceuticals received considerable attention in the talks. One of the four agreements signed was on cooperation in the field of agriculture and food industry. The agreement aims to expand mutually beneficial cooperation in these areas by promoting relations in the areas of information exchange, joint scientific research, exchange of experience, cooperation in agricultural research and the creation of joint working groups.
“Agriculture is not only about development, but we can also think about hubs, how to save and secure agricultural hubs in the long term,” Mr Zelensky said.
Recently, Mr Zelensky also called for co-production with other countries as Ukraine needs a huge amount of weapons and ammunition as the war enters its third year. “Our priority is the development of defence production in Ukraine using modern technologies, including the production of shells, missiles and drones, by cooperating with global leaders in this field,” he wrote on X last year.
“During the meeting with representatives of defense companies and organizations from the US, UK, Germany, France, Turkey, Sweden and the Czech Republic, we discussed the possibilities of partnership and joint weapons production,” he said, adding that Ukraine is ready to offer special conditions to companies willing to work together with the country in the defense production sector.