Haluk Bayraktar, chief executive of a private Turkish drone maker Baykar, said his firm was ready to sell its newly developed attack drones Akinci to Ukraine as it struggles for control of the restive eastern provinces
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2021) Haluk Bayraktar, chief executive of a private Turkish drone maker Baykar, said his firm was ready to sell its newly developed attack drones Akinci to Ukraine as it struggles for control of the restive eastern provinces.
The Ukrainian defense ministry signed a deal with Baykar in 2019 to procure Bayraktar TB2 military drones. Ukrainian troops used the Turkish armed drone to attack rebels in the breakaway east for the first time last month.
Bayraktar told the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform in an interview published Friday that a number of countries wanted to buy the more advanced Akinci. He said export contacts with several of them were in the pipeline.
Asked whether Ukraine was among the potential buyers, Bayraktar said he was convinced that Akinci could become another addition to Ukraine's strategic arsenal and that "we will soon see it flying in the Ukrainian skies."
"We are de facto ready for it," he added.
