|
Russia steps up military expansion
Luke Harding
London
Guardian
Wednesday Aug 22, 2007
Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's
military power and restore its role as the world's leading producer
of military aircraft yesterday.
Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet
history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft
manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind
the west.
The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range
missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the US
with nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic
began last week for the first time since 1992.
Presidential aides hinted yesterday that Russia could shortly
resume the production of Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic nuclear bombers,
now that the aircraft are again flying "combat missions".
The bombers would be used as a "means of strategic deterrence",
a presidential aide, Alexander Burutin, told Interfax.
Mr Putin said Russia would also resume the large-scale manufacture
of civilian planes. "Russia has a very important goal which
is to retain leadership in the production of military equipment,"
he said.
(Article continues below)
The new emphasis on Russia's revived military prowess comes against
a backdrop of deteriorating relations with the west. Mr Putin
has denounced the US's missile defence plans in Europe, scrapped
an agreement with Nato on conventional armed forces, and grabbed
a large, if symbolic, chunk of the Arctic.
Yesterday a senior Russian general warned the Czech Republic
it would be making a "big mistake" if it permitted the
US to use its territory. Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's military chief
of staff, said Prague should hold off any final decision on the
shield until after next year's US presidential elections.
"I do not exclude that a new administration in the United
States will re-evaluate the current administration's decisions
on missile defence," he said, after a meeting in Moscow with
the Czech defence minister, Martin Bartak.
Speaking at yesterday's MAKS-2007 international airshow, Mr Putin
said: "Russia, as a state that has acquired new economic
capabilities, will continue to attach special importance to high
technology and development."
Analysts, however, took issue with Mr Putin's claim that Russia
was already the leading producer of military aircraft. However,
they acknowledged that Russia had developed some impressive "technologies".
These include a new S-400 missile and aircraft interceptor system,
similar but better than the US Patriot, and a lethal new supersonic
cruise missile, the Meteorit-A.
"They have some very good kit," one industry observer
said.
Russia also used yesterday's airshow - held at Zhukovsky, a former
Soviet airbase on the leafy outskirts of Moscow - to show off
its latest generation of jet fighters.
These include an upgraded Sukhoi jet, the SU-35, which has a
new engines and a new radar system, and a revamped "vector
thrust" MIG, the MIG 29-OVT. "They are good aircraft.
The MIG can do a very lovely flip," the industry observer
added.
One analyst said Mr Putin did not want confrontation with the
west but was determined to restore Russia's strategic parity with
the US.
"Russia wants balance. It wants a strategic balance with
the US," Ivan Safranchuk, a Moscow-based expert on defence,
told the Guardian.
"Russia wants to do this as cheaply as possible. But with
the Bush administration withdrawing from arms control treaties,
Russia is saying it is also ready to keep the balance at a high
level of cost."
Asked about Russia's resumption of long-range bomber patrols,
Mr Safranchuk said: "It's significant. For 15 years the political
leadership was constraining the military on this. Now it isn't."
In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union produced more civilian
planes than any other country in the world apart from the United
States.
After the collapse of communism, Russia's impoverished government
drastically cut spending on its aircraft industry. Factories producing
military planes fared better than those building civilian aircraft,
mainly because of buoyant sales to India and China. But Russia
started to fall behind the west in the design of advanced fighters
and other military aircraft.
Mr Putin is now determined to make Russia the world's third-largest
manufacturer of passenger jets - after the United States, with
Boeing, and the European Union, with Airbus.
Russia's passenger airlines own about 2,500 ageing aircraft -
of which just 100 are western-made models - although they fly
one-third of all Russian passengers.
Last week Russian officials said they planned to build 4,500
civilian aircraft by 2025, while the Kremlin has pledged £125bn
to boost the civilian industry.
As part of the plan to boost significantly Russia's civilian
aircraft industry, a new state-controlled organisation, the United
Aircraft Corporation, has been created.
It is led by Sergei Ivanov, Russia's hawkish first deputy prime
minister, who sat next to Mr Putin during yesterday's airshow
- and the leading candidate to succeed him after next year's presidential
elections.
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
