MOSCOW, July 14 /ITAR-TASS/ Russia’s engine-building defense enterprise Saturn will fully substitute marine gas turbine engines currently supplied by Ukraine for Russian warships with its own output by 2017, the company’s press office reported on Monday.

“The enterprise has launched a large-scale import substitution program. We’ll produce all items that we used to import from Ukraine. Naturally, we hope that specialists from Ukraine will come,” Saturn CEO Ilya Fyodorov said.

By 2017, the enterprise has undertaken to switch to a full production cycle for the manufacture of M90FR engines (27,000 horsepower) and create power units on their basis, the CEO said.

The Saturn enterprise is also preparing a basis for the trials of gas turbine engines for the Russian Navy. The enterprise has already developed M75RU (7,000 horsepower) and M70FRU (14,000 horsepower) engines, the company’s press office said.

“We are confident that the tasks set to Saturn will be fulfilled by 2017 and our ships will surely not be left without motors. In the current situation, the issues of import substitution have come to the fore for us, considering their importance for the state’s security,” the head of Saturn said.

Russia’s modern combat ships, in particular, Project 22350 and 11356 frigates, are still equipped with power units produced by the Zorya-Mashproekt enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Nikolayev.

Back in the early 2000s, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy endorsed a concept of developing and using gas turbine engines and power units on the Navy’s surface ships to avoid dependence on Ukrainian supplies and assigned this task to the Saturn enterprise.

President of the Russian United Ship-Building Corporation Alexei Rakhmanov said in June the company had a number of “interesting solutions” for the temporary replacement of Ukrainian power units aboard Russian warships but the ultimate goal was to transfer the production of basic power units to Russia.