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Russia’s 2015 state defense order to be only 96% fulfilled — deputy PM

According to the vice-premier in charge for the defense industry, the funds allocated for the fulfillment of the remaining four percent of assignments will be re-distributed among other projects

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russia’s state defense order will be 96% fulfilled, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday.

"The state defense order fulfillment will be at the level of about 96%," Rogozin said in an interview with Rossiya-24 TV Channel.

According to the vice-premier, the funds allocated for the fulfillment of the remaining four percent of assignments will be re-distributed among other projects.

The vice-premier who oversees the defense and industrial sector in the Russian government cited shipbuilding as an example of disruptions in some areas of state defense order fulfillment. According to Rogozin, several vessels planned for construction this year won’t be built. The schedule of commissioning some of them will be extended to 2016, he added.

"Some of them are based on engines that were produced in Ukraine… We paid them [Ukraine] money: there are some contracts worth up to $100 million, which was paid to the Nikolayev-based enterprise Zorya-mashproyekt for the delivery of gas turbine engines," the Russian vice-premier said.

"They are not returning the money either while the court is in Kiev and you have to go there to start litigation while we don’t have such production facilities [in Russia]," Rogozin said.

The Russian industry is taking energetic efforts to restart the production of such engines, the vice-premier added.

"Some time will be needed for that. The years of 2017-2018 are the years when we’ll fully substitute imported items that we used to receive freely from Ukraine earlier. Now we can’t receive them," Rogozin said.