Ukraine offered Portugal to start joint development of firefighting aircraft
Ukraine offered to develop a joint a firefighting aircraft with Portugal based on one of the planes of the state enterprise, Antonov (Kyiv), according to the Twitter of the Presidential Press Secretary, Svyatoslav Tsegolko.
"Ukraine offered to develop a joint firefighting aircraft with Portugal based on Antonov," he wrote after the meeting between Poroshenko and the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
"Despite the fact that Portugal is in the far west of the European continent, and we are in the east, we are very close, and when problems occur, we are ready to respond, as happened during the fire [in Portugal]. We suggested developing a joint project to manufacture firefighting planes based on the Antonov. We are confident that it will enhance Portugal's security and it will be a very successful project for both countries,” Poroshenko announced.
In the early 1990s, they began to produce a firefighting plane based on the An-32 at the Anatov plant. In 2017, Antonov released the first An-132, which is more modern that the An-32.
This summer, Portugal experienced the most destructive forest fires in its history.