ST. PETERSBURG, June 19 (Itar-Tass) - Russia will take measures to preserve the global strategic deterrence system in balance, President Vladimir Putin said.
“We cannot allow the strategic deterrence system to be upset or the effectiveness of our nuclear forces to be decreased,” he said at a meeting on the aerospace defence system, held on Wednesday, June 19.
“The creation of the aerospace defence system will continue to be one of the key priorities in military development,” he said.
“Basically, an effective aerospace defence system is a guarantee that our strategic deterrence capabilities remain stable and defend the country from space and air attacks,” the president said.
Putin urged the Defence Ministry and defence enterprises to coordinate their work to create an aerospace defence system.
“The creation of such a system requires careful preparation, effective organisation and thorough analysis of threats and offensive arms development plans and, of course, close coordination with other armed services,” Putin said.
“The Defence Ministry and the defence industry should take this into account during R&D to create the aerospace defence system,” he added.
The president also warned officials that they will bear personal responsibility for failure to meet the schedule.
“Serial production and future developments should proceed strictly in compliance with the schedule, without delays and failures,” he said.
“There should be personal responsibility,” Putin said.
Under the state arms programme, the government will provide about 3.4 trillion roubles (about 20 percent of all funding to be earmarked for Army and Navy rearmament) to the Aerospace Defence Troops.
The Aerospace Defence Troops should have no less than 50 percent of modern weapons by 2015 and no less than 70 percent by 2020.
To this end, the Aerospace Defence Troops have been provided with new Voronezh-M and Voronezh-DM radar stations, Pantsyr-S missile defence systems, and S-400 systems.
Aerospace Defence Troops spokesperson, Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin told ITAR-TASS earlier that the new radars can even determine nationality marks. They are part of S-400 Triumf systems used by Aerospace Defence Troops to defend airspace over Moscow and the central industrial area.
“Electronic technical units of the Aerospace Defence Troops will get about 20 new radars of various modifications before the end of the year,” Zolotukhion said.
S-400 Triumf air defence systems were put on combat duty in Russia’s Southern Military District at the end of last year to replace S-300PM missiles.
Supplies of new air defence systems to the 4th Air Force and Air Defence Command in the District started in 2009. Since then, more than 60 pieces of new military hardware have been delivered and put into operation.
The Triumf system is more than two times more effective that previous systems. Each system can attack 10 targets with up to 20 missiles.
The S-400 uses 3 different missiles to cover its entire performance envelope.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has stated that the S-400 is for the Russian Armed Forces only; it will not be exported to other countries.