MOSCOW, March 20 (Itar-Tass) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the share of new armaments must increase at such as rate so as to have the army fully re-equipped by 2020.
"By 2015, the share of new armaments must increase to 30 percent, and by 2020 - to 70 to 100 percent," Medvedev added at a meeting of senior Defence Ministry officials on Tuesday, adding that more than 23 trillion roubles are allocated for this purpose. He called for paying special attention to the state program of armaments for the period from 2011 through 2015.
"We have to complete the establishment of the new system to control the armed forces, in the first place their brigades and tactical link; it should be pooled into a single information space on the basis of modern IT and telecommunication technologies.
"Another important task is to perfect military education.
"Presidential cadet colleges will continue to be developed. Such colleges are to be opened in Tyumen and Krasnodar this year. Later, they will appear in Tomsk, Moscow, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg," Medvedev said.
The president called for "perfecting the system of military planning and legislative basis in the defence sphere."
"We have to amend the laws on defence, martial law and others with the view of concentrating resources allocated for the needs of defence and simultaneous optimization," Medvedev said.
The president believes Russia must actively re-equip its armed forces in order to be able to have an adequate response to the U.S.-European missile defence system.
"We must be fully armed to give an answer within the framework of my statement in November 2011," he said.
In his opinion, it is necessary to take into account the adjustments to be introduced during the third and fourth phases of the so-called adaptive approach to the deployment of the European missile defence.
"All the necessary instructions to the government and the Defence Ministry have already been issued. Although the talks continue, we have to prepare for serious re-equipping of the armed forces so that we could be in form and present our answer to the European missile defence initiative," Medvedev pointed out.
Russia demands that the USA give legal guarantees that its missile defence facilities are not aimed against Moscow, but Washington refuses to provide them, and only offers assurances by word of mouth. In this connection, Medvedev made a special statement on the problem in November 2011, in which he regretted that the "USA, together with other NATO partners, did not show serious readiness to move towards dialogue and cooperation."