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Medvedev calls for retooling defence enterprises in Russia

“Only then can we solve the task of creating a totally new army by 2020 and supplying highly effective and weapons to the Armed Forces,” Medvedev said

YEKATERINBURG, November 28 (Itar-Tass) —— President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia can create a new army only by upgrading and retooling defence enterprises.

“Only then can we solve the task of creating a totally new army by 2020 and supplying highly effective and weapons to the Armed Forces. I think that the Defence Ministry and the government should take this into account when making work plans for next year,” Medvedev said at a meeting with Sverlovsk region Governor Alexander Misharin on Monday, November 28.

“We should have new good hardware by 2020. But for it to be new, the enterprises that make it should be modernised,” he said.

Medvedev believes it “useless to complain all the time that our defence industry makes wrong tanks, wrong howitzers and wrong cartridges”.

“Of course they do because the equipment is old. They have to become up-to-date in order to fit into the new life, including rearmament of our Armed Forces,” the president said.