Serbian police cancel Europride parade in Belgrade

Online News EditorSeptember 13, 2022

 

Belgrade, Sep 13 (EFE).- Serbian police have banned the Europride parade that was scheduled to take place in Belgrade on September 17, the country’s interior ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry justified the decision with security concerns over an anti-globalist march set to take place at the same time.

“It has been assessed that there is a risk of attacks and confrontations, there is a risk of violence, destruction of property and other forms of threat to the public order of great magnitude,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

Interior minister Aleksandar Vulin added that possible clashes would put those taking part in the marches, as well as other citizens, in danger.

The organizers of the parade celebrating the LGBT community condemned Serbia’s political leadership for canceling the event, calling it a “total failure.”

“We are working with the @BelgradePride team on alternative solutions,” the European Pride Organizers Association (EPOA) added in a Twitter post.

EPOA chief Kristine Garina added that banning pride parades is “anti-constitutional.”

“It’s been ruled by the Serbian court several times. The ban will be appealed in court and will be overturned,” she tweeted.

According to Garina, thousands of LGBT people, as well as their friends, will gather in Belgrade on Saturday, despite the ban.

Belgrade Europride week kicked off on Monday by hoisting the rainbow flag outside Serbian government headquarters. It will end on Sunday with more than 130 concerts, human rights conferences and exhibitions, among other events across the Serbian capital.

Belgrade was chosen by EPOA three years ago to host Europride 2022, to be the first city in Southeast Europe to do so.

In recent weeks, traditionalists, right-wing extremists and members of the Serbian Orthodox Church have taken to the streets to protest the event.EFE

sn-jk/smq/mp

‘What doors will open?’: Hope in Singapore ahead of gay sex decriminalization

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Paloma Almoguera

Singapore, Sep 24 (EFE).- After almost a century in force, Singapore is preparing to repeal a law inherited from the British Empire that criminalizes sex between men – a decision that generates elation but also doubt among the LGBT community of the conservative island state.

“There (is) a question on what else would come. Still there is a lot of insecurity of what the trade-offs are. Okay, we will repeal the law, but what are you going to take away from the lives of gay people?” asks Becca D’Bus, the pseudonym of Eugene Tan, creator of a successful drag queen show.

Becca, 44, is referring to the fine print of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s Aug. 22 announcement that Section 377A of the penal code will be repealed, and that she thinks the government will try to “appease” certain groups who have expressed opposition on the island of 5.7 million people.

Among them is part of the influential religious sector. Singapore has a 33 percent Buddhist population, while about 20 percent are Christian and 14 percent Muslim, in addition to other minority faiths.

In force since 1938, section 377A includes penalties of up to two years in prison for men who commit acts of “gross indecency” with another man.

Lee said the repeal, the date of which has not been announced, will “bring the law into line with current social morals, and I hope, provide some relief to gay Singaporeans.”

Initially, it does. The repeal has for decades been the main goal for the LGBT+ community in Singapore, which in February suffered great disappointment when the appeals court ruled against a claim of unconstitutionality.

“I feel happy for the people who had fought hard for the repeal. They should be recognized for their hard work,” says Joseph (not his real name), a Singaporean who has been in a gay relationship for years and who prefers to remain anonymous.

His happiness is shared by Becca, although from a different perspective.

“Marriage is not something that I care about, but it is clear that there is an attempt to sort of limit the ways in which citizens can be heard,” she tells EFE.

“I think we should be talking about care, families and how people choose to care for each other and how we protect these relationships, whatever they may be,” she adds.

The eventual repeal of 377A, which India annulled in 2018 and which is still in force in former British colonies such as neighboring Malaysia and Myanmar, is considered the definitive end of the criminalization of gay sex in Singapore, even though the government has not been enforcing the law for years.

“I have never felt any form of discrimination here due to my sexuality – both personally and at a professional level,” Joseph says.

However, sitting in a cafe devoid of the make-up and wardrobe she wears on stage every Saturday night, Becca says that many companies and theaters have refused to contract her show for being too queer, and questions the impact that the repeal will have on vital issues.

“There are suggestions that materially things won’t change: housing laws (Singapore, where 80 percent of the population lives in government-subsidized housing, makes it easier for married people and families to access accommodation), marriage, discrimination in the work environment…”

“If someone thinks he has been fired because his bosses are homophobic, he doesn’t have a case in court – we are not protected,” Becca denounces.

What they both agree on is that new discussions must be had and that their lives will not change much immediately after the repeal.

“As a guy who is in a long-term relationship, who shares a household with another man, this repeal does not really impact me. Our lives before and after the repeal will remain the same,” says Joseph.

Becca jokes: “I don’t think I will be having more sex.”

The nomadic day laborers sustaining Turkey’s agricultural industry

Online News EditorSeptember 17, 2022

 

By Dogan Tiliç

Ankara, Sep 17 (EFE).- The unease is palpable among the day laborers getting ready to work at an onion field outside Ankara.

“Stop filming,” says one. “Delete the photos, we don’t want press, it doesn’t help and only brings problems.”

The man worried about the presence of journalists is Ahmed, who is from the province of Sanliurfa, some 700 kilometers away in southeast Turkey.

Ahmed is a university student but, like his father, Ömer, 66, he earns a living by traveling around the country for seven months of the year in search of work to sustain the family.

Turkey’s agriculture sector, a major exporter to European markers, is kept afloat by some two million day mostly Kurdish laborers.

They are not granted labor rights and toil away in poor conditions.

“We start in April,” Ömer, who has been a seasonal worker for as long as he can remember, tells Efe.

“We left the village and we went to Adana (western Turkey) to work in the fields. Then we went to Malatya (eastern Turkey) to harvest apricots and now we will be with the onions in Ankara for a month.”

Day laborers such as Ahmed and Ömer make up an estimated fifth of the five to six-million strong agricultural workforce in Turkey.

The vast majority of the informal laborers are Kurds who leave their native southeastern Turkey from April to November, migrating across the country from the greenhouses of the Mediterranean coast to the fields of central Anatolia and the Black Sea.

Myriad sectors rely on their labor, from cotton, peanuts and hazelnuts to onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, peppers, tomato and watermelons.

This year, the going rate for a seasonal laborer is around 175 Turkish lira ($9.60) per day. Under those conditions, a laborer would have to work an entire month with no days off to reach the minimum wage.

It is common for entire families to travel around in search of work.

Men, women and children toil away for up to 12 hours under the sun and live in camps set up far from the nearest towns and villages.

“We arrive here, surrounded by dirt and mud, we don’t have water, nothing. There’s no electricity,” Hasan, a young day laborer, tells Efe.

Ömer adds: “We don’t have baths or a shower. We travel. Now we are here, in two days we will be somewhere else. If we stayed in one place, we would be part of society.”

Many day laborers return to the same spots each year.

“If you live for five or 10 years in a European country, they give you nationality,” Hasan says.

“We’ve been coming here for 18 years and they don’t even give us electricity. You have to walk 10 kilometers to find a cafe to charge your mobile.”

Ailing divers say Honduras fails to deliver promised benefits

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Anny Castro

Puerto Lempira, Honduras, Sep 23 (EFE)- Indigenous lobster divers who developed debilitating medical conditions from venturing into deep waters without the necessary equipment or precaution say that the Honduran government has failed to fully comply with a 2021 court ruling mandating compensation.

“There is no support,” the leader of the Association of Injured Divers of Mosquitia, Erasmo Granuel, told Efe while seated in a wheelchair in the doorway of his humble wooden dwelling.

He said that more than 3,000 divers in Mosquitia, which sits on the Caribbean coast, are disabled after years of going below depths of 40 m (131 ft) in pursuit of lobster, edible snails and sea cucumbers.

Those divers “have nothing, not even a cent,” the Miskito leader said.

The majority of the 100,000-plus residents in the six municipalities making up the Mosquitia region subsist by fishing, selling lobster and snails to wholesalers for 95 lempiras ($3.85) a pound.

Thirteen months ago, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of 42 members of the Miskito community who sued Honduras over the state’s failure to regulate, supervise and oversee the practice of dangerous activities by the firms that control the deep diving lobster fishing industry.

The suit was filed in 2003 and only 10 of the original plaintiffs are still alive.

One of the survivors is Emsly Emus Rivas, 78, who has been in a wheelchair since 1984 due to injuries he suffered during an episode of decompression. He can’t afford the cost – anywhere from $142 to $304 per session – for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber.

Another, Evelito Londres, has nearly total hearing loss as a result of decompression syndrome.

Londres and Ral Balderramos, who has trouble walking, are two of the divers who have received housing and monetary compensation from the Honduran government under the August 2021 court ruling.

The lawmaker who represents the area in the Honduran congress, Erika Urtecho, is asking the government to provide the hospital in Puerto Lempira with additional hyperbaric chambers to accommodate the large number of injured divers.

The state has not done as much as it should to comply with the court ruling, Urtecho said, while adding that she is hopeful the administration of President Xiomara Castro, who took office earlier this year, “will be complying fully.”

“Those men who in their time were hurt are leaving children and wives without sustenance because they can’t return to work,” the legislator said.

“But we must not think only of those 42 (plaintiffs), the number of injured divers is much bigger and continues to grow,” Urtecho said. EFE ac/dr

Huge surplus leaves Georgia with $6.6B in cash to spend

By JEFF AMY

yesterday

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FILE - Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at Ola High School on July 29, 2022, in McDonough, Ga. On Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, the state Accounting Office reported that Georgia ran a surplus of more than $6 billion in the budget year that ended June 30, meaning the state's next governor and lawmakers could spend or give back billions. (AP Photo/Megan Varner, File)


ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia ran a surplus of more than $6 billion in the budget year that ended June 30, meaning the state’s next governor and lawmakers could spend or give back billions.

The State Accounting Office, in a Friday report, said Georgia ran a $6.37 billion surplus even after spending $28.6 billion in state taxes and fees in the 2022 budget year. Total state general fund receipts rose a whopping 22%.

Even after filling its rainy day fund to the legal maximum, Georgia has $6.58 billion in “unreserved, undesignated” surplus — cash that leaders can spend however they want.

Some money is already spoken for, with the state likely to transfer more than $1 billion to pay for roads, bridges and other transportation projects. That would make up for the state’s decision in March to waive its gasoline tax of 29.1 cents per gallon and its diesel tax of 32.6 cents per gallon. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has repeatedly extended the tax breaks since then, a move lawmakers must ratify when they return in January.

Kemp, running for reelection against Democrat Stacey Abrams, has designs on an additional $2 billion of the surplus, pledging to give another $1 billion in state income tax rebates, plus spending $1 billion to renew a long-dormant property tax break for homeowners.

“The governor will continue to leverage state resources to help families in our state fight through 40-year-high inflation caused by failed Democratic leadership in Washington,” said Kemp spokesperson Tate Mitchell.

Abrams also wants to give a $1 billion income tax rebate, although she would restrict it to households making less than $250,000 a year. She proposes spending $1.9 billion of the surplus over four years, financing a big boost in teacher pay and an expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program to provide health insurance for poorer adults.

Republicans resist spending surplus money on continuing programs, and Kemp has attacked Abrams’ spending proposals as unsustainable. He claims she wouldn’t be able to keep her promises without tax increases.

“The numbers don’t lie,” said Abrams campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd. “Thanks in part to federal legislation passed by Georgia Democrats, we have the money to make investments in education, health care and small businesses — all without raisings taxes.”

Republican leaders have held fast to pessimism about state revenue forged in the Great Recession, when steep revenue drops and an unwillingness to raise taxes led to painful cuts in state services. Kemp said at a campaign appearance on Sept. 12 that “unfortunately, growth has slowed two quarters in a row, and many are predicting even rougher times in 2023.”

Part of their concern is that a steep rise in interest rates to combat inflation could slow the economy or tip it into recession. There’s also a state income tax cut beginning Jan. 1, 2024. It will reduce Georgia’s current tax — with a top rate of 5.75% and lower brackets below — to a flat tax of 5.49%. That would cost about $450 million in the first year, and budget writers must begin accounting for it next year.

But revenue thus far shows few signs of slowing, running 5.5% ahead of plan through the first two months of the 2023 budget year. Both income and sales taxes are running more than 10% ahead of last year, buoyed in part by wage and price inflation, and Georgia would be even further ahead if it resumes collecting fuel taxes.

The state also has other money in reserve. The rainy day fund to cover budget shortfalls remained filled to its legal limit of 15% of tax receipts, rising from $4.29 billion to $5.24 billion.

And Georgia’s lottery continued to pile up a surplus as well. That could bolster calls to expand the college aid and preschool programs financed by lottery proceeds. The lottery is legally required to keep half of yearly $1.47 billion proceeds in reserve to cover possible decreases in gambling revenue. But that fund now holds an additional $1.1 billion above what’s required.

___

Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

Professor, NASA Researcher Pleads Guilty in China Ties Case

September 23, 2022 8:49 PM
Associated Press

HOUSTON —

A NASA researcher and Texas A&M University professor pleaded guilty to charges related to hiding his ties to a university created by the Chinese government while accepting federal grant money.

Zhengdong Cheng pleaded guilty to two counts — violation of NASA regulations and falsifying official documents — during a hearing in Houston federal court Thursday.

Cheng's conviction was part of a program called the China Initiative, which was first started under the Trump administration. But in February, the Justice Department abandoned the program after complaints it chilled academic collaboration and contributed to anti-Asian bias. The department had also endured high-profile setbacks in individual prosecutions, resulting in the dismissal of multiple criminal cases against academic researchers in the last year. The Justice Department said it planned to impose a higher bar for such prosecutions.

Cheng had originally been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and false statements when he was arrested in August 2020. But he pleaded guilty to the new charges as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sentenced Cheng to the time he had already served during his pretrial incarceration — about 13 months.

Cheng also agreed to pay restitution of $86,876 and pay a fine of $20,000.

Philip Hilder, Cheng's attorney, said the professor was "relieved that this unfortunate chapter of his life is behind."

But Hilder was critical of the China Initiative program, saying while its original purpose was "to fight economic espionage ... that was not the case in his matter."

"The China Initiative ... has now been phased out as a Justice Department priority. The overall mission stays the same, to ferret out economic espionage, but the focus is to target wrongdoers by their deeds and not by their ethnicity," Hilder said.

Prosecutors accused Cheng, who was hired by Texas A&M in 2004, of concealing his work in China even as his team of researchers received nearly $750,000 in grant money for space research. NASA is restricted from using funds for any collaboration or coordination with China, Chinese institutions or any Chinese-owned company.

But, prosecutors say, Cheng violated those restrictions by maintaining multiple undisclosed associations with China, including serving as director of a soft matter institute at a technology university in Guangdong, China, that was established by China's Ministry of Education.

"Texas A&M and the Texas A&M System take security very seriously, and we constantly are on the look-out for vulnerabilities, especially when national security is involved," John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said in a statement Friday. "We will continue to work with our federal partners to keep our intellectual property secure and out of the hands of foreign governments who seek to do us harm."

Cheng was fired from Texas A&M shortly after his arrest. Texas A&M is located about 145 kilometers northwest of Houston.

Hilder said Cheng loves academia but is evaluating his options on what he does next.

"He's a proud, loyal United States citizen and he looks forward to getting back to being a productive member of our society," Hilder said.

In a tweet Friday, FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith said his agency "prioritizes investigating threats to academia as part of our commitment to preventing intellectual property theft at U.S. research institutions and companies."

In February, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told reporters he believed the initiative was prompted by genuine national security concerns. He said he did not believe investigators had targeted professors on the basis of ethnicity, but he also said he had to be responsive to concerns he heard, including from Asian American groups.

Towel sales serving as voter-preference gauge ahead of Brazil election

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Carlos Meneses

Sao Paulo, Sep 23 (EFE).- Sales of towels with the images of rightist President Jair Bolsonaro and center-left former head of state Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are serving as an informal gauge of voter sentiment ahead of the Oct. 2 first round of Brazil’s general election.

Street stalls selling Lula and Bolsonaro beach towels have proliferated in recent weeks in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s two largest cities, with some vendors keeping a running count of buyers’ preferences on blackboards.

Images of those scoreboards have been going viral on the Internet, causing towel sales to soar.

The phenomenon has become known as “DataToalha” (DataTowel), a reference to DataFolha, a prestigious Brazilian polling firm that on Thursday released a survey showing Lula in first place with 47 percent of voter preference and Bolsonaro trailing far behind in second place with 33 percent support.

Like all the other voter surveys, DataToalha also shows Lula with a comfortable lead.

One vendor on Sao Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Fernando Lopes, set up his street stall near the headquarters of the Federação das Industrias do Estado de São Paulo, a powerful employers’ trade union, and says he is thrilled with the pace of sales.

“I’m taking advantage of the contest to earn some money. The one selling the most is Lula’s,” the 31-year-old said as a group of people took a photo of his blackboard.

In fact, the tally at that stall was extremely lopsided: “Bolsonaro 34-Lula 193.”

Each towel is selling for 40 reais ($7.60). Hats with the images of those same two candidates, meanwhile, are selling for 30 reais.

Lopes works seven days a week and says he sells between 15 and 20 towels a day, most of them with the image of the candidate of the center-left Workers’ Party (PT).

“The Bolsonaro voters complain a lot. They say the tally is a lie and that I’m campaigning for Lula,” he said. “It’s not true because I sell both of their towels.”

Lopes said people have tried unsuccessfully to alter the count through bribes. “One woman even offered me 700 reais, but I told her ‘no.'”

He recalled that another Bolsonaro supporter said he wanted to buy 100 towels with the image of the retired army captain.

But Lopes said the man changed his mind when told the scoreboard was merely keeping track of the number of Bolsonaro- and Lula-supporting customers and that the count would go up by just one regardless of how many towels he bought.

Lula’s supporters on Avenida Paulista showed equal enthusiasm for their candidate and expressed hope that he will win in the first round, as some polls suggest. If neither candidate receives more than 50 percent of the ballots, a runoff will be held on Oct. 30.

“If I were rich, I’d buy 1,000 Lula towels,” Julia Espindola, a 30-year-old nurse who visited Lopes’ stall after hearing about those sales on social media, told Efe.

A half-hour later, Lula’s count had gone up by two to 195, while Bolsonaro’s tally was stuck on 34.

Lopes, who saw his income evaporate due to pandemic-triggered social-distancing measures and was forced to live on the street with his wife and two-year-old daughter, hopes that all the formal and informal polling prove correct and the ex-president will emerge victorious.

“Lula hasn’t won the election yet and he’s already creating jobs,” Lopes joked, while at the same time accusing the incumbent president of “not caring about the poor.” EFE

Bolsonaro, military intensify antidemocratic conspiracies on eve of Brazil’s elections

Tomas Castanheira

WSWS.ORG

The antidemocratic conspiracies promoted by Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro and the military are advancing with the approach of the first round of presidential elections on October 2.

Brazilian special forces troops (Ministerio de Defensa)

As the president loudly proceeds with his plan to contest an increasingly likely defeat at the polls, the military has been elevated to the position of final arbiter of the political process, with the installation of the next president dependent on its approval.

Just two weeks before the election, the president has publicly reiterated that he will not accept a result other than victory. In an interview last Sunday on the SBT TV network, Bolsonaro declared that if he receives less than 60 percent of the vote, that is, if he is not declared elected in the first round, “something abnormal happened at the TSE [Superior Electoral Court].”

The claim that an electoral fraud is underway to remove him from power is the central argument of the Hitler-style “big lie” being systematically promoted by Bolsonaro. This coup narrative dismisses as fraudulent the results of all recent polls, pointing to the Workers Party (PT) candidate, Lula da Silva, beating him by a wide margin. The latest Datafolha poll, published on Thursday, showed Lula with 47 percent of the vote and Bolsonaro with only 33 percent.

In the interview recorded in London, where he attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, Bolsonaro justified his certainty of victory on what he calls Data Povo (“Data People”), i.e., his subjective perception of the “popular will” based upon crowds attending his events, as opposed to data from institutes like Datafolha.

He said, “It’s pretty divided, you know, much more favorable to me. I say, if I get less than 60 percent of the vote, something abnormal has happened at the TSE in view obviously of the Data Povo that you measure by the amount of people who not only come to my events as well as welcome us along the way to get to the venue.”

Bolsonaro’s plan to contest the ballots widely mimics Donald Trump’s actions in the last US presidential elections, which culminated in the January 6 Capitol coup attempt. But much more than Trump, Bolsonaro has reasons to trust that a significant section of the Armed Forces will legitimize his attempt to hold on to state power.

Last week, the military clubs in Rio de Janeiro released a joint note calling for the “Rescue of the Green and Yellow” (the colors of Brazil’s flag) against what they claim to be “an explicit attempt to destroy the concepts of citizenship and patriotism.” Concluding with a passage from the Tamoio Song, by the Brazilian Romantic poet Gonçalves Dias, which says that “Life is combat, that slaughters the weak,” the document is an unequivocal call for a coup.

The demonstrations conducted by Bolsonaro on Independence Day, last September 7, had already confirmed these expectations. They were highly successful in merging, with the consent of the generals, a massive military parade with the demonstration of thousands of Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters.

The corrupt bourgeois opposition to Bolsonaro responded to this pivotal event in Brazil’s political history with new concessions to the military that put even more power into their hands.

On September 13, the TSE approved a reformulation of the “integrity test” of the electronic ballot boxes to meet demands from the military. The change, made on the eve of the electoral process, will introduce the use of biometrics in the inspection of the ballot boxes.

As admitted by the president of the TSE himself, Supreme Court (STF) Judge Alexandre de Moraes, this supposed “safety measure” lacks any technical justification. Moraes said that “there is no proof that the test [with biometrics] will or will not improve oversight [of the ballots].” In other words, the TSE accepted a requirement that is known to have the sole purpose of fomenting the distrust of the electoral process that underlies Bolsonaro’s conspiracy.

Moraes, who assumed the presidency of the TSE on August 17, has taken as his main task the fine tuning of the Electoral Court’s relations with the military, deepening the concessions made by his predecessors. He promptly set up exclusive TSE meetings with the military, behind closed doors and without minutes. His predecessor, Edson Fachin, had resisted accepting this anti-democratic demand made insistently by Defense Minister and Bolsonaro’s conspiracy collaborator, Gen. Paulo Sergio Oliveira.

The intimate relationship established by the PT and its pseudo-left ally, the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), to these reactionary forces in the bourgeois state is highly revealing of the political bankruptcy of these parties.

The same Alexandre de Moraes was praised by the Brazilian pseudo-left as the great savior of democracy in the country. It has entrusted the STF judge with taking “all measures deemed appropriate to ensure that the result of the 2022 election is fully respected and fulfilled,” as stated in a document written by PSOL parliamentarians.

The “measures” taken by Moraes, with the criminal consent of the PT and the PSOL, are proving to be key pieces in the advance of military tutelage over the political regime.

In addition to the concessions taken from the TSE, the military is preparing to carry out, for the first time since the establishment of the bourgeois democratic regime in Brazil, a parallel check of the ballot boxes. Soldiers will be sent to hundreds of polling places around the country to personally check the “fairness” of the democratic process.

Whether the findings of this verification will serve to legitimize a political coup by Bolsonaro, or even an independent intervention by the military in the name of “political stabilization” of the country, remains a question to be answered. The degeneration of bourgeois democracy in Brazil, on the other hand, is a deepening process in which there is no turning back.

 

Ukraine’s Defense Industry And The Prospect Of A Long War – Analysis

 September 24, 2022 

By Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute

By Thomas Laffitte*

(FPRI) — After more than six months of war, Russia and Ukraine are now preparing for a long period of hostilities, forcing each side to find long-term solutions for their military supplies. Without Western military and financial assistance, Ukraine would be unable to sustain its military or continue fighting. Although the West has pledged to provide Ukraine with equipment for as long as it takes to win the war, Kyiv wants to procure as much equipment as possible to avoid any policy changes or delays in delivery.

What contributions could Kyiv expect from its homegrown defense industry? Ukraine inherited numerous defense enterprises from the Soviet era, so can these produce some of the wartime equipment Ukraine needs?

The fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed the Russian flagship Moskva at the beginning of April using a missile designed and produced by the Ukrainian industry hints at an untapped potential. More recently, the announcement that Baykar, the Turkish manufacturer of the Bayraktar TB2 drones, intends to open a factory in Ukraine also propelled optimism about Ukraine’s military-industrial capacities.

The Ukrainian defense industry already fulfills an essential function with its ability to repair military equipment. Although only a marginal contributor to the country’s military supplies, Ukraine’s defense industry could prove significant if it manages to scale up. To do this, it will have to overcome many obstacles. No Ukrainian territory is spared from Russian strikes, and it is very difficult in these conditions to set up such strategic production lines. Above all, after years of underfunding and production problems, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex entered this war in a very poor condition.

The Slow Decline of the Ukrainian Defense Industry

A common mistake is to forget that Russia is not the sole heir to the Soviet Union. At the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine concentrated approximately 15 percent of both research, development, test and establishment, and factories of the former Soviet military production. This amounted to 700 dedicated plants and a workforce of approximately 500,000 people, making the defense industry one of the largest employers in the country.

Some of these enterprises were among the most strategic for the Soviet military. This was especially true for the navy, with the shipyards of Mykolaiv located on the Black Sea. These were the only ones able to accommodate an aircraft carrier, a severe loss for Moscow, which subsequently had to maintain its unique aircraft carrier in its northern ports, which freeze in winter.

Ukraine also inherited many assets in the aerospace industry. Pivdenne, based in Dnipro, was the heart of the Soviet intercontinental missile production; Motor Sich, based in Zaporizhzhia, equipped Soviet aircraft with its engines and gas turbines; and the most famous example certainly remains Antonov, the company behind the largest aircraft of all time, the Mriia A-225, which was destroyed in the first days of the war. In addition, the Malyushev factory in Kharkiv is the largest armor production center in the former Soviet Union and has been since World War II.

But as significant as it was in 1991, Ukraine’s defense sector faced massive economic headwinds following independence. Unlike Moscow’s ambition to remain a great power, Ukraine quickly chose neutrality. Perceiving no immediate security threat, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not have a pressing need to acquire equipment, nor was it given the budget to do so. As a result, it purchased little from local producers, who had to rely on exports to stay alive. On top of that, lack of funding pushed away the country’s educated engineers, who were attracted by other, better-paid industries.

The Wake-Up Call of 2014

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the outbreak of the conflict in the Donbas was a wake-up call, forcing the Ukrainian army to re-equip itself, and in the process, place orders with local companies. Exports drastically decreased, to the benefit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who for example acquired a batch of T-64 and BTR-3 tanks originally ordered by Angola and Thailand.

But this sudden wave of orders came up against an industry that has lost its historical partners based in Russia, with whom the Ukrainian industry had until 2014 maintained vital links. The total disruption of trade has caused serial problems for these producers, who have suddenly had to find new suppliers. Often, they did not find any. Antonov, for example, has not produced a single plane since 2016.

In addition to the overall failure of the Ukrainian industry, there is the current damage caused by the invasion of Russia since February. Not surprisingly, Ukrainian production sites are targets for Russian strikes. Already by May, key facilities in Kyiv and Mykolaiv, as well as the giant Malyshev tank factory in Kharkiv, were destroyed or badly damaged. More recently, the Motor Sich factory in Zaporizhzhia was hit.

Limited Expectations 

What can be expected from the Ukrainian defense industry going forward? The sinking of the Russian flagship in the Black Sea, the Moskva, using surface-to-sea missile developed by the Luch Design Bureau in Kyiv, named “Neptune,” an update of a former Soviet technology that now equips the Ukrainian military, was a turning point in the war and a boost for the country’s defense sector. Luch, one of the few relatively successful Ukrainian producers, also builds the air-to-ground Stuhna missile, regularly used during the war. Nevertheless, procurement of high-tech weaponry remains overall very limited. In 2021, the general director of Luch, Oleh Korostelev, declared that his company was only able to provide “600 or 800” Neptune missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which requested at least 2,000.

However, high-tech weaponry is not the only field where the defense industry matters. Steven Zaloga, defense specialist and consultant at TEAL Group, explains that “the Ukrainian army [is] well provided with modern uniforms, small arms, and soldiers’ gear and a lot of this seems to be indigenous.” He also notes that “in the armored vehicle field, there seems to be a fair number of BTR-3/BTR-4 in use.” It is hard to know in more detail the contribution of the homegrown industry, he notes, as “Ukrainians are tight-lipped about their production capacity at the moment,” for fear of seeing them suffer air strikes.

This fear also casts doubt on the announcement of a future opening of a factory to build Bayraktar drones in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the arrival of the Turkish company and its joint production with Ukrainian manufacturers. The land has reportedly already been purchased, but its location remains unknown. On the other hand, the Ukrainian drone maker UkrSpecSystems announced plans to relocate production to neighboring Poland. Considering this news, it is hard to imagine the Turkish producer investing in a new facility in Ukraine.

The Need for Maintenance

Given the challenges Ukraine faces in procuring weapons, it has no choice but to rely partly on domestic manufacturing. Talking to Ukrinform, Vladyslav Belbas, chief executive officer of the Ukrainian manufacturer UAV, summarized the situation:

Without waiting for lend lease, Ukraine is obliged to place orders with domestic producers. Will there be negative consequences for the Ukrainian defense industry from lend lease? Yes, there will, but the key word here is ‘Ukrainian.’ Because if there is no lend lease, then there will be no Ukrainian defense industry. There needs to be a healthy balance between import supplies capabilities and domestic manufacturing capabilities.

Given the state of Ukrainian finances, there is little hope that Kyiv will overload its local producers with orders. On the other hand, maintaining production lines capable of repairing equipment seems to be a more achievable goal. “Ukraine has a significant armored vehicle rebuild facilities, so this may account for their ability to recycle damaged/captured armored vehicles,” reminds Steven Zaloga. This aspect is also underscored by Vladyslav Belbas: “[the indigenous industry] should not stand aside and watch this process, because without domestic manufacturers, none of the equipment supplied to us will be promptly repaired. We cannot take, for example, an American howitzer to the USA for repairs.”

Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, echoed these concerns in one of his rare public interventions. “Ukraine can consider acquiring the relevant weapons systems from partners only as a solution for the transition period. From the first days of the Russian full-scale aggression, the Ukrainian side has faced the acute problem of restoring and establishing its own design and production capacities to manufacture high-tech weapon systems,” says Zaluzhny. He added that “Ukraine’s national efforts to this end open up unlimited opportunities for international military-technical cooperation with partner countries.”

Despite its challenges, the Ukrainian defense industry still can play a decisive role in the war, if only through its ability to repair equipment. In the immediate future, Western arms deliveries will have the greatest impact, but if Ukraine can save its industry, both by protecting it from Russian strikes and by providing it with sufficient financing, it could make a valuable contribution.  

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

*About the author: Thomas Laffitte is a Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Ph.D. candidate enrolled in a double degree between Sciences Po, Paris and the Central European University, Vienna.

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