Russia to spend $15.6 bln on defense industry development

The Russian government will allocate 1 trillion rubles ($15.625 billion) for the development of the domestic defense industry, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with members of the ruling United Russia party on July 11.

“This year, the government has approved a new version of the program for developing the defense and industrial sector. The program is large and is also designed for a perspective. Overall, financing in the amount of about 1 trillion rubles is intended for this program. This is a large sum of money,” the Russian premier said.

According to Medvedev, the program will focus on retooling Russian defense enterprises and providing them with new equipment.

This will be done “so that the hardware you produce will be at the highest level,” Medvedev said.

The Russian president and the government are pursuing a single policy aimed at modernizing the defense industry and delivering new types of armaments to the Army and the Navy, the premier said.

In May, the Russian premier approved a new version of the program for the development of the domestic defense industry for 2016-2020 worth 1.067 trillion rubles.

As Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin said, the program stipulated measures to support the defense industry, in particular, the enterprises working for the defense and industrial sector, strengthen the personnel potential, substitute imported military products earlier supplied from NATO member countries, the European Union and Ukraine with domestic output.

The program envisages scientific support for the defense industry to improve the technical characteristics of existing armaments.

Marine and aviation gas turbine-making is another important element of the program, the vice-premier said.

The first goal is to bring the level of the defense industry’s production and technological readiness to 100% to ensure the output of armaments and military hardware. This year, this figure stood at 97%, Rogozin said.

The second most important task is to put 929 new production facilities into operation. The third goal is to bring the share of innovative products in total output to 40%

The fourth goal is to develop at least 1,300 technologies by 2020 to ensure the output of military products.