The Ukrainian government has turned to a Montebello company to help secure its country’s borders.

Worldwide Aeros Corp. has landed an order to supply surveillance systems and airships to the turbulent nation.

The firm has three decades of experience building blimps and early warning detection systems but has rarely had to work so fast to fulfill an order.

The Ukrainians were in such a hurry to get the surveillance systems that they gave Worldwide Aeros only 30 days to deliver the first of those, with the airships and other systems coming later as part of a multiyear deal.

“This is a dynamic situation and the requirements of deployment in such a short time are really challenging,” said Chief Executive Igor Pasternak.

Worldwide Aeros’ early warning systems use high-resolution, high-definition infrared cameras and radar to identify and track land, sea and air vehicles as well as unmanned aerial crafts and people.

The systems will be used to guard the country’s eastern border with Russia, which shifted Ukraine’s borders last year after forcibly taking control of, and then annexing, the Crimean Peninsula.

The country needs to fix blind spots within its existing surveillance to more effectively monitor and secure that border, said General Viktor Nazarenko, head of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service.

“Ukraine has urgent need for these new early warning detection stations along our border, for improved situational awareness and informed response coordination in the protection of our civilian population from continued aggression,” he said in a statement.

Pasternak, who was born in Kazakhstan, said he lived in the Ukraine for nearly 30 years and formed Worldwide Aeros there in 1986 before moving with his business to the United States in 1994, gradually making his company the leader in its field.

Or as he put it, “When it comes to border surveillance using airships, we’re the only game in town.”

– Carol Lawrence