Ukraine's Antonov to supply Saudi Arabia with aircraft
The Ukrainian state-owned company Antonov has signed contracts to supply Saudi Arabia with aircraft and have also reached an agreement with Azerbaijan on the purchase of Ukrainian aircraft. This was announced by the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, during a visit to the company on its 70th anniversary.
“Even when the aggressive country of Russia completely closed its markets for our engineering and aircraft needs and stopped supplying us with components, we did not give up! We stayed undefeated. We found our way into new markets and learned to represent Ukraine in the world arena in a completely different way,” Poroshenko said.
He also said that the first commercial flight to Australia by the Mriya aircraft, which was built by Antonov, was another achievement.
“There is no better way to showcase ourselves as a strong aviation country. Wherever our Mriya landed, thousands of people greeted it with yellow and blue flags and said ‘Ukraine, Antonov’. This is your work. This is what we have achieved and because of it, we can confidently look toward the future,” Poroshenko added.
“Our common goal is to transform Ukraine from just an aviation country into a world-class player,” he concluded.
It was previously reported that mass production of the AN-225 Mriya plane is possible.