Metinvest, within the framework of Rinat Akhmetov’s military initiative 'Steel Front,' is engaged in issues of exporting bunker-hideouts for organizing the border between Poland and Russia, reported the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Oleksandr Myronenko in an interview with Pryamyi Channel.
“With our Western partners, we mostly work on shelters. This is very relevant now: we show them our solutions for constructing various facilities. For example, a hospital that fully meets NATO standards at Role2 level. It was inspected by numerous delegations: military medics, engineers, and foreign specialists – and all recognized that the solution is quite effective,” Myronenko said.
According to him, at many exhibitions and military-themed meetings, the company has presented its engineering solutions based on “hideouts,” and they are very popular.
“Now we are working on entering the international market with these solutions, for example for organizing the border between Poland and Russia, using our experience and proposals regarding underground facilities. NATO armies do not have such experience, so they are very interested. And we exchange information and experience with them,” the COO noted.
He added that the shelters have undergone a major transformation. Initially, it was just a “barrel” buried in the ground.
“Now we provide a full service – this is effectively an underground house with its own lighting, generator, stove, and all amenities: you just need to connect the generator to the outlet, and the space is ready for use,” the COO clarified.
“The unique product we are proud of is, of course, the protective structures for Patriot and SAMP/T air defense systems. And now we are developing protection for the control module of the Hawk air defense system – which operates in Ukraine. In my view, this is unique experience, because we are talking about state-of-the-art equipment designed to protect the sky from the enemy, but in real combat conditions certain flaws were revealed. Together with the military, we fixed them – making control modules, radar installations, and other systems safer so that personnel can feel confident even in dangerous situations and conduct air defense of our cities and towns,” the top manager explained.
He added that the company plans to continue supporting the military in all areas – both through equipment procurement and by providing its own products.
“In production, we will focus on protecting equipment: we will improve existing solutions and develop new ones for different types of equipment. The second direction is the development of ‘hideouts’ and solutions based on them. On the basis of such shelters, an underground training center has already been built, and now we are completing the construction of another – a large underground center for pilot training. This is a large niche in which we plan to continue working and developing,” Myronenko concluded.
