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Defense minister orders to ensure 2017 army and navy rearmament targets

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stressed the importance of going ahead with balanced development of all arms and services

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has issued orders to ensure this year’s targets for rearming the armed forces with new types of weapons and hardware under the current defense contract should be met as expected.

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"It is required to enforce proper control of the implementation of the state defense contract for 2017 in order to keep up the pace of rearming the Army and the Navy," Shoigu said at a meeting with top Defense Ministry officials on Tuesday.

He stated it was important to perfect the system of troops’ combat and operative training, to apply advanced means and programs of instruction and also to capitalize on the experience gained in Syria.

Shoigu stressed the importance of going ahead with balanced development of all arms and services, mastering the use of new types of armament and equipment and enhancing the combat potential of the strategic nuclear forces.

On state armament program

Russia’s state armament program for 2018-2025 should be prepared and agreed with industry in the first half of this year, according to Shoigu.

"This year or, to be more exact, in the first half of the year, we should prepare, agree with all, in the first place, with industry, with science, the next state program of armaments for the period of 2018-2025," Shoigu said.

"This is the most important task and we need to make it the focus of attention of those who deal with the drafting and the preparation of these programs," the defense minister said.

Read also

Putin wants new state armaments program draft prepared by July 1, 2017

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced in late 2015 that it had started work on a state armament program through 2025. Prior to that, Shoigu said the program would be worth 30 trillion rubles ($500 billion). The current state armament program for 2011-2020 is worth about 20 trillion rubles ($330 billion).

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged in the summer of 2016 to keep the pace of preparing a new state program. He said at a session of the military and industrial commission at that time that the state defense order assignments had been 97% fulfilled in 2015.

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Sergey Shoigu Russian Defense Ministry

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