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Putin pledges to support military aviation

The head of state pledges to allocate up to five trillion rbls from the budget in the next few years

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on Wednesday in Novosibirsk to discuss the state of and prospects for military aviation. The head of state pledges to allocate up to five trillion rbls from the budget in the next few years to provide new aircraft for the Air Force.

The Rossiiskaya Gazeta recalls that the president held more than one meeting to provide the Army and the Navy with new systems of armaments. "As we agreed, we will return to the problems regularly," the president said on Wednesday. "We will have no other historic chance at the set period with the appropriate quality and with finances to carry out the large-scale tasks of the country to ensure its defence capability," Putin noted. "Everybody must concentrate on carrying out the task and realize that it is not ordinary work and not passing." "Today we have received, tomorrow we will receive. No, there will be no such money tomorrow, and time will pass. We must remember this always," he added.

The president at the meeting ordered to enlarge the part of modern models of aircraft to 70 percent by 2020, the Kommersant noted. Twenty five percent of the state armaments programme will be allocated for the aircraft-building sector, that is almost five trillion rbls. The new enginery must account for 70 percent by 2020, he said, noting that for the time being it accounted for only about 20 percent.

A separate issue mentioned by the president was service maintenance of the military enginery. In his view, it would be right for the Defence Ministry to conclude contracts for the entire life service cycle, from the development to the utilization. "It must increase the responsibility," Putin said. The newspaper recalls that the first to support the idea was Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The president has admitted that aviation industrial facilities must undergo full technical re-equipment and strengthen the production and human resource capacity, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes. "It is clear that it is not an easy task to increase the output and reconstruct the production at the same time. It is a hard matter. But it is quite realizable," Putin noted. He said he would keep all the aspects of the Army and Navy re-armament plan under constant control and urged the Defence Ministry and the aviation industry sector to look at the prospects even if for several steps ahead.

The Defence Ministry later explained to reporters what new models were meant, the Moskovsky Komsomolets said. Though not everything on the list is the latest. These are Su-34s (the first planes have been delivered to the troops), Su-35s (under testing), Il-476s (will be provided beginning 2014), MiG-29K/KUB, Su-30SM, Yak-130 planes, Mi-28N and Ka-52 helicopters (will be accepted in late 2013). Putin has given a quarter of the state defence order to aviation.