Type State-owned company Products Firearms, weapons Website Official web site Founded 1991 | Industry Defense Revenue unknown Headquarters Vinnytsia, Ukraine | |
 | ||
Key people Viktor Pysarenko, Director Owner Ministry of Internal Affairs | ||
Fort (Ukrainian: КП НВО "Форт" МВС України (full name), НВО "Форт" (short name)) is a Ukrainian weapons manufacturer from Vinnytsia, Ukraine.
Contents
History
In 1991 a new company was formed to design and manufacture small arms for Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Security Service and State Border Service of Ukraine. At the end of March, 1998 at the opening of Ukraine's only facility serially manufacturing small arms at "Fort" association officials announced that the plant in Vinnytsia in which over 5 million hryvnias (about $1.2 million) had been invested in two years was capable of large-scale production of small arms. The plant launched serial production of the Fort 12 pistol ordered primarily by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Pistol samples were also sent to Uzbekistan that placed an advance order and to Russia. At the opening "Fort" Director Viktor Pisarenko said that its design bureau had developed and prepared for production 8 models of short-barreled weapons and 4 models of long-barreled weapons. "Weapons from Vinnytsia surpass analogs, for instance the Makarov pistol, in many respects," he said.
Already in May 1998 Ukrainian Interior Ministry formations started receiving the first Fort-12 pistols manufactured in Vinnytsia. At the moment according to "Fort" Chief Engineer Evgeniy Bokovoj, all Ukraine's army and police forces are supplied with the plant's output. By now the plant has developed over a dozen pistol and gun modifications, some of which were demonstrated at IDEX-1999, IDEX-2001 and IDEF-2001 international arms exhibitions.
As for foreign trade, according to media reports, an agreement was signed in October 2000 on the delivery of a batch of Fort pistols to Uzbekistan. So far it is the only country to which new Ukrainian small arms have been delivered, according to official press reports.
In October 2008, RPC Fort and Israel Weapon Industries have reached agreements to allow Fort to license-manufacture in Ukraine firearms such as the Tavor rifle system, the Negev light machinegun and the Galatz sniper rifle, all of which are displayed at Fort website as for early 2009.