TULA, February 2. /TASS/. During the special military operation, the Russian defense industry made a real breakthrough and a labor feat, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the participants of a forum devoted to the special military operation.

"During the special military operation, the teams of our defense enterprises, research institutes, and design bureaus made a real breakthrough, I would say without any exaggeration - a labor feat," the head of state said.

"The workers of all the country’s defense enterprises have proven that they are worthy of our great ancestors - the workers of Kuzbass, Magnitka, Moscow, Tula, the Urals, Kazan, and besieged Leningrad," the president added.

He stressed that during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 in most difficult conditions the ancestors of today's defense workers won the industrial battle against Hitler's Germany, "and in fact, against the industry of Europe, which then worked for Nazi Germany."

"The whole country, all our united people, from young to old, became the creators of Victory," Putin recalled.