Russia, Ukraine share military love

As has become known, in the course of Ukrainian president Kushma’s visit to Moscow an agreement was signed preserving the specialization of companies engaged in military-oriented production. The document was signed by Aleksandr Dondukov, Russia’s industry, science and technologies minister, and Vladimir Novitski, the chairman of Ukraine’s State Committee for Industrial Policy,said Vladimir Belukov, an official at Russia’s Industry, Science and Technologies Ministry. In his words, the agreement consolidates for a long run cooperative links between Russian and Ukrainian defence-oriented companies having unique specializations. According to Mr. Belukov, over 600 companies in CIS countries supply component parts to Russian companies producing arms and military equipment. At that, some 1,500 Russian companies supply them with necessary materials. In this way, we manage to retain an interrelated, if not single, defence complex of CIS countries, Mr. Belukov added. According to him, similar inter-government agreements are to be signed with other member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent State. On December 1999, such an agreement was signed by the Armenian government. Currently, an agreement of such kind is being prepared with Belarus, our corespondent Aleksandr Gorobets reports from Kiev.