Russia’s Putin says no plans for large-scale arms purchases abroad

MOSCOW, Feb 20 (PRIME) -- The Russian government does not plan to make large-scale arms purchases abroad, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday during a meeting devoted to the development of the defense industry through 2020, RIA Novosti reported.

Putin said that the government could only purchase separate samples of weapons' models abroad to have access to modern technologies. “We do not plan and we won’t make any large-scale purchases (of foreign weapons), it is absurd,” Putin said.

Russian defense industry companies often criticized the Defense Ministry for buying weapons abroad. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said earlier that the military servants would only buy those models of arms abroad, which are already outdated in Russia, but no large-scale purchases were planned.

Putin reiterated that the government previously decided to allocate 20 trillion rubles for an arms modernization program until 2020. He said that the companies working in the defense sector must prove the efficient use of budget funds by supplying the country’s armed forces with the most advanced weaponry and military equipment.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the government had already directed over 200 billion rubles to defense industry enterprises under the state defense order since the beginning of 2012.

Putin also said he instructed the authorities to work out a distinct and clear control system over the fulfillment of the state defense order. “Distinct, clear, and efficient mechanism of control over each segment of the state defense order should be worked out on the government level,” Putin said.

Putin added that the costs of components and commercial services sometimes account for 65%–95% of the defense companies’ total costs of sale. He said he believed this share to be excessively high and instructed the Federal Tariff Service to consider a correlation between profitability and spending in the defense sector.

Putin said that all Russian defense enterprises must submit information about the banks they cooperated with over the state defense orders to the government by March 1. He added that the government should more actively attract civil enterprises into taking state defense orders and enhance the transparency in the defense sector.

Putin also said that all attempts to artificially inflate prices for products supplied under the state defense order must be immediately suppressed.

(29.9982 rubles - U.S. $1)

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