Ukraine will not nationalise Motor Sich – security secretary

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), has said that there is currently no talk of nationalising Motor Sich, despite having said at an earlier meeting of the council that the enterprise “will soon be returned to the ownership of the Ukrainian people.” “The word nationalisation was neither used in any way at the meeting of the NSDC nor in decisions adopted by the NSDC, nor at the briefing at which I spoke, Danilov said on the programme Freedom of Speech on the TRK Ukraina television channel on the evening of March 12, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency. At that briefing, Danilov had declared that Kyiv would halt the takeover of Motor Sich by Chinese firm Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings, responding to the objections of the United States about the prospects of important military technology falling into China’s hands. He had told journalists that the engine manufacturer “will be returned to the ownership of the Ukrainian state in a legal, constitutional way in the near future.” China has become increasingly economically important to Ukraine since the latter’s relationship with Moscow was destroyed with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. But forced into a choice between Beijing and Washington, Kyiv evidently prioritised the United States as the crucial security partner. “Ukraine, being in a state of war, cannot afford to hand over an enterprise on which Ukrainian defence capability depends into the wrong hands,” Danilov told TRK Ukraina. “Today we are involved in an information war with the Russian Federation, which has a direct relationship with China to attempt to seize the Motor Sich enterprise. So, today we have such negative information regarding nationalisation. It was about the fact that Motor Sich will soon be returned to the ownership of the Ukrainian people in a legal way in accordance with the current legislation,” he added. As previously reported, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree in late January enacting sanctions against the Chinese investors, after which Ukraine’s security service raided the premises in Zaporizhzhia where the manufacturer had been due to hold a shareholders’ meeting. Security officers said they were looking for “possible illegal activity” by Skyrizon – an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands but linked to China – and local investment firm DCH Group in their attempts to control Motor Sich. Danilov concluded on TRK Ukraina that “if investors are based in some Galapagos Islands, some Virgin Islands, some offshores unknown to Ukraine, then they are rather dubious. We urge investors to invest in Ukraine those funds that should enter our country.” Motor Sich produces the ZMBK Ivchenko-Progress D-18 turbofan, which powers variants of the An-124 and An-225 freighters. China had previously attempted to buy the programme from Ukraine’s Antonov Design Bureau through the Aerospace Industry Corporation of China, which said it wanted to restart An-225 production. Meanwhile, the engine manufacturer’s subsidiary Motor Sich Airlines (M9, Zaporizhzhia) has continued to operate scheduled and charter passenger and cargo services.