Russia withdrew from the joint program in late May on the grounds that it was outdated.
"The military will get two An-70s in 2008," said Oleh Shevchenko, general director of the Kiev-based Aviant plant.
He said the cost of the project would increase only insignificantly against previous estimates under the joint program. The aircraft maker has invested 86 million hryvnias ($17 million) in the project.
"The An-70 project has been carried out on a technical order initiated in 1984, and no end is in sight," Sergei Ivanov, Russia's defense minister and a deputy prime minister, said at a recent meeting of defense ministers from former Soviet republics. "We will see what comes next. We will make a separate statement on this issue."
The An-70 program was launched in 1990, but has experienced a number of setbacks since that time. Major concerns have been around the D-27 turbopropfan engines designed by Ukraine's Progress design bureau.
The first prototype was lost in a mid-air collision in 1995, while the second prototype crash-landed in January 2001 during a test flight near Omsk, Russia.
The estimated cost of industrial production of the An-70 has been put at $50-55 million. Russia's Defense Ministry originally ordered 15 planes, which would have larger payload capacities than the U.S. C-130 Hercules.
