West’s sanctions boost Russia’s drone industry: official

PanARMENIAN.Net - Director of UAV development programs at Russia’s Vega Radio Engineering Corporation Arkady Syroyezhko said that economic sanctions against Russia had made the manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operate more effectively.

“The import substitution program could help [Russian defense] industry to apprehend its drawbacks and to use its existing internal reserves. This is going to be hard, but we will solve this problem. Sanctions have made [the defense industry] work more effectively,” Syroyezhko said, according to RIA Novosti.

According to Syroyezhko, while Russian Defense Ministry is not purchasing foreign UAVs, in the future it plans to continue buying certain foreign-made components.

“A well-planned cooperation is needed. It also makes no sense to focus only on import. The import substitution program will help to reveal the industry’s shortcomings,” the official added.

Several rounds of economic sanctions have been imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union over Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian crisis - a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied. The sanctions particularly targeted defense, energy and banking sectors of the Russian economy.

In September, Vladimir Kozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide on military-technical cooperation, said the sanctions “have forced Russia to launch a comprehensive import substitution program that would help domestic manufactures overcome dependency on foreign components.”

He also stated that Russia would eventually be able to produce almost 100 percent of military production domestically.