The largest state arms production program in modern Russian history, for which 20 trillion rubles have been allocated from the federal budget over the past 10 years, has been scrapped.
In early November, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to rewrite the army's supply standards and bring them "in line with the real needs" of the armed forces. According to the list of Putin's assignments, the order must be implemented as soon as possible, i.e., by November 14. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu were put in charge of this task.
De facto Putin has suspended the state armament program, the basic plan on the basis of which the military-industrial complex has been working for the last several years. A source close to the Ministry of Defense and a senior manager of a defense industry company told Vedomosti that the Plan ceased to be the document used for purchasing armaments and financing the military-industrial complex.
In fact, the development of the new SAP which was estimated at 22 trillion rubles has been suspended too, said one of the sources of the newspaper. The reason, according to him, is that it is necessary to "revise the priorities" based on the experience of the campaign in Ukraine.
Launched in the early 2010s and then expanded every five years, the state arms production program "ate" about two trillion rubles annually - two-thirds of the defense budget. According to the plan, by 2020 the army was supposed to receive divisions of Armata tanks, a new strategic bomber, 600 planes, and thousands of helicopters, while the share of modern weapons was supposed to grow to 70%.
But the Russian army entered Ukraine with old equipment, paper maps, and exhausted its supply of high-precision missiles in a matter of months. After mass mobilization, it was forced to hand out World War II equipment to untrained soldiers. The Kremlin had to turn to Iran and North Korea for weapons, and Belarus for uniforms for the military. But even that was not enough: after the mass mobilization, the Defense Ministry was forced to hand out World War II-era equipment to untrained soldiers. Contrary to U.S. intelligence predictions that Kiev could fall in three days, Russian troops were on the verge of a fiasco, surrendering half of the conquered territories, including Kharkov Oblast and Kherson, by early November.
The Russian military-industrial complex is now no longer capable of producing and maintaining "critical equipment for operations in Ukraine," U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Oct. 14.
The military-industrial complex has been hit by Western sanctions that have cut off factories from high-tech goods. The most deplorable situation is in the Russian microelectronics industry, where components for the production of weapons are almost non-existent, Adeyemo said.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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