Russia’s Procurement Programmes Continue on Schedule, claims Sergei Shoigu
Several national information agencies have quoted General Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s Minister of Defence, who has just released the results of the military procurement programme for the first quarter of the current year, claiming the armed forces have received the planned quantity of military hardware over this period.
“Since the beginning of the year, the troops have received over 750 units of the latest and upgraded weapons,” Shoigu said in a report to the Russian President Vladimir Putin via a video conference this Tuesday. “This number includes 58 aircraft and helicopters, over 40 armoured combat vehicles, 500+ multi-purpose vehicles, as well as 75 complexes with unmanned aerial vehicles,” he added.
He also said that the MoD, “is carrying out all the planned measures to re-equip the Armed Forces and improve their quality condition in the context of restrictive measures to counteract the new coronavirus infection”.
“The production capacities of the enterprises of the military-industrial complex are occupied by 72%,” said the Minister.
According to him, 990 out of 1013 enterprises of the national military-industrial complex have been working with 896 enterprises to employ over 90% of the staff, both engineering and technical. The Russian military has also taken part in the fight against COVID-19, deploying 16 multidisciplinary medical centres in various regions of the country.
The minister also announced the Army-2020 International defence forum will be held on schedule throughout the last week of August and will be followed by International Army games. In 2019 the Army forum gathered representatives from 120 nations while the Army games involved 221 teams from 37 countries.
