MOSCOW, September 19 (Itar-Tass) -“The Russian army needs the weapons of the future,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta quotes Vladimir Putin as saying at a conference which discussed the state program of weapons supply to ground troops in 2011- 2020. For the time being Russia has rather poor results in the realization of the state program on re-equipment of the army and fleet. The previous program intended for 2007-2015 had been chronically not fulfilled in all of its main parameters. For this reason the program was put into oblivion; two years ago it was replaced by a new one intended until 2020.
The initial budget of the Russian state armaments program until 2020 had exceeded 19 trillion rubles in comparison with a much more austere budget of the previous program which was under five trillion rubles At present, in connection with new realities in the Russian economy, which has a tendency towards recession, it became obvious that the law enforcers would have to considerably cut their appetites," Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.
"For purposes of raising the share of modern weapons and military hardware to 30 percent by the end of 2015 and also increasing the share of such weapons to 70-100 percent by 2020 we are conducting joint work with the enterprises of the industry, which enabled to increase the share of modern armaments, military and special machinery to 17 percent, and by the year's end we are planning further increases up to 19 percent," Novaya Gazeta quoted Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov as saying.
In the meantime, Duma deputies have been considering measures to tighten responsibility for failure to fulfill the state defense order. The Duma has already prepared amendments to the Russian Code on administrative offences which envisage sanctions against those responsible for thwarting the implementation of the state defense order. Nevertheless, experts believe that the planned sanctions and even the presidential control will not help change the situation in the Russian defense and industrial sector in the main. The newspaper quoted senior scientific worker of the Institute of Economic Forecasts under the Russian Academy of Science Yakov Dubenetsky, who said that taking into account the existing degree of the degradation of the national industry with thousands of technological cycles broken, the main assets of the enterprises used up and no cadre potential, pinning hopes on a breakthrough in one sector only- the defense-industrial sector, is groundless.”
Rossiyskaya Gazeta pointed out that the state armaments program envisages more than 3 trillion rubles in allocations for the modern equipment for the army and some of them are already being supplied to troops. In 2011 the modern equipment accounted for 23 percent, and by the end of 2013 its share is expected to go up to 28 percent.
The newspaper quotes President Putin as saying at a recent conference in Izhevsk that " the task of ensuring a balanced and comprehensive development of the system of armaments for ground troops has, regrettably, not been fulfilled yet." The president outlined three main tasks - the development of weapons of high precision intended not only for long-range targets, but also for targets in the tactical warfare zone, optimization of the small arms production, broadening the educational, training and test-range basis and ensuring support to the engineering and weapons-design school, Rossiyskaya Gazeta said.