REUTERS
The president says Ukraine was able to preserve its defense industry.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says Ukraine for the last two years has stopped importing over 50,000 product items from Russia as part of an import substitution program.
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"Today, 447 enterprises are operating in Ukraine's defense industry. Over the past two years, more than 50,000 items of products that were previously delivered from Russia have been replaced by imports. They thought they would stop our military industrial sector and our army," he said during a working visit to Kharkiv region on February 14.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the costs envisaged for the implementation of the state defense order on the purchase of weapons and military equipment in 2019 may grow to UAH 25 billion (US$925.6 million). Although it is still planned to allocate UAH 21 billion ($777.5 million) for this purpose, as in 2018.