Head of Motor Sich admits failure of cooperation with the West

Motor Sich, once one of the largest aircraft engine manufacturers in the USSR, was unable to establish production with Western partners after refusing to cooperate with RUSSIA, the company's HEAD said

Ukrainian aerospace company Motor Sich is having trouble attracting partners in the West after refusing to cooperate with Russia, CEO Alexey Nikiforov told REUTERS .

As the agency notes, Motor Sich remains the main manufacturer of helicopter and aircraft engines in Ukraine , including for some large cargo aircraft.

According to Nikiforov, his team has been trying to negotiate cooperation with major Western corporations such as Lockheed Martin and RTX for almost a year, but no results have been achieved so far. “We want to turn to the West,” he emphasized.

At the same time, the heads of American defense companies, officials and experts interviewed by Reuters noted that potential cooperation with Motor Sich is affected by many factors. The agency's interlocutors indicated that the Ukrainian company first needs to prove that it can conduct business in accordance with US and European rules.

For example, one executive at a US defense company said many “legacy” Ukrainian defense companies will face “red flags” when going through compliance procedures with Western corporations. These problems are not insurmountable, but they could delay the approval of joint production agreements, the source said.

Pavel Verkhnyatsky, DIRECTOR of COSA Solutions (a company that helps Western companies enter the Ukrainian market), told Reuters that Motor Sich has a poor reputation in terms of asset management and the efficiency of launching and developing projects.

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Motor Sich is a Ukrainian enterprise engaged in the development and production, repair and maintenance of aircraft gas turbine engines for airplanes and helicopters, as well as industrial gas turbine units. The company's headquarters are located in the city of Zaporizhia, which is under the control of Ukraine. Last fall, the Zaporizhia region became part of Russia following a referendum. The city of Melitopol became the temporary capital of the region.

The enterprise was founded in the city of Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporozhye) in 1907. During the Soviet era, it already included several factories that produced engines for the An-8, An-10, An-12, An-32, Il-18 , Il-38, Be-12, An-124, An-124-100 and An-225 Mriya aircraft.

After the collapse of the USSR, the company continued to manufacture and repair engines, and Motor Sich's share of the Russian market was 50% back in 2009. In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian government banned military-technical cooperation with Russia and imposed sanctions against Russian consumers of Motor Sich products. Former company president Vyacheslav Boguslayev told RBC in an interview in 2018 that after refusing to cooperate with Russia, production volumes fell by 40%.