MOSCOW, September 30. /TASS/. Moscow has turned its attention to an agreement between Ankara and Kiev on the construction of a facility in Ukraine to service Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and Turkey is well aware of Russia’s stance on the danger of using such combat systems in Donbass, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"The Kremlin has certainly took a notice of it," Peskov said at a news briefing in response to deliver a statement on the construction of the training and testing center in the Kiev Region to service Turkish combat drones Bayraktar.
"Our stance is well known that the handover of such systems to Ukraine may result in use of these weapons by the Ukrainian military against their people," he said. "Turkey is well aware of our stance as well."
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a bilateral meeting on September 29 in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Also on September 29, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and Turkey’s Bayraktar Savunma signed a memorandum on the construction of the training and testing facility outside the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. The facility is intended to provide a technical maintenance of Bayraktar UAVs and training courses on how to operate Turkish combat striking drones.
On April 12, 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, commenting on earlier media reports of Ankara selling combat drones to Kiev, that Moscow urged responsible countries, including Turkey, to assess Kiev’s bellicose statements and refrain from encouraging its militaristic aspirations.
In 2019, Ukraine purchased and tested Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, planning to equip them with the MAM-L laser-guided smart munitions, produced by Turkish defense industry manufacturer Roketsan.
Director General of Ukraine’s Ukrspetsexport company Vadim Nozdrya said in October 2020 that Kiev was interested in the joint production of the Bayraktar drones.