Army 2018 International Military Technical Forum and National Security Week completed
Today, the Army 2018 International Military Technical Forum and National Security Week has completed their programmes. They have been of great interest both among the professional community and general public. For the first time, total number of guests and participants has exсeeded one million people.
The Army 2018 International Military Technical Forum and National Security Week International Forum were held on August 21-26 in the territory of the Patriot Exhibition and Congress Centre, Alabino training ground and Kubinka airfield, as well as at exhibition sites in all military districts and the Northern Fleet.
Representatives of 118 foreign states, 102 official military delegations, including 39 high-level ones attended the forum, with 18 of them headed by the chiefs of defence departments. The total number of representatives of foreign military departments exceeded 700 people.
The forums’ programme included 105 bilateral meetings with 42 of them organised jointly with foreign partners by the Russian Defence Ministry, Industry and Trade Ministry, Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation. The JSC ‘Rosoboronexport’ and Military-Industrial Complex enterprises hosted 63 bilateral meetings.
Representatives of the Russian Federation Government, federal executive bodies, Russian Defence Ministry, central military control bodies, Defence Industry Complex enterprises and international guests took part in the opening ceremonies of the forums.
The forums have been attended by 1,254 enterprises and organisations that showcased 26,459 samples of military and dual-use products. Static expositions of technical state-of-the-art exhibits stretched across almost 350,000 sq m.
The Patriot Exhibition and Congress Centre, which is 15 times larger than the Red Square, presented 295 samples of armaments, military and special hardware of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as 2,025 samples of civilian and dual-use equipment from industrial enterprises.
Eight foreign countries (Armenia, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan, Slovakia, Turkey) presented their national exhibitions.
Exhibitions were organised by 84 defence companies from 18 foreign countries (Armenia, Andorra, Belarus, Brazil, Great Britain, Vietnam, Germany, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan, Slovakia, Turkey, France, Czech Republic, Thailand, Singapore).
Besides, 36 new models of armaments and military hardware were first demonstrated for forum guests and participants.
For example, the exposition ‘Russian Army – Tomorrow’ presented the following newest and advanced samples of armaments and military equipment: Armata tank, T-15 armoured vehicle with the new Kinzhal combat module, Derivatsiya-PVO self-propelled antiaircraft artillery system, Koalitsiya self-propelled howitzer, Bumerang armoured personnel carrier, Kurganets infantry fighting vehicle, Tor-M2DT anti-aircraft missile system, Pantsir-C1 anti-aircraft missile-and-gun system, Arctic-version army snowmobiles and other hardware.
The Russian Defence Ministry put the largest number of expositions: its military command and control bodies placed 50 exhibition sites visited by 145,000 visitors.
An exposition of weapons captured from militants in Syria was a highlight of the forum. Visitors of the event were able to take a close look at car bombs, jeeps with mounted anti-aircraft machine guns and launchers of unguided missiles, as well as small arms.
The Polite people show at the Alabino training ground, Komsomolskoye Lake and Kubinka airfield involved 288 pieces of the latest equipment. Foreign guests saw the fire-and-manoeuvring capabilities of modern military hardware (T-90M, T-80BVM modernised tanks, BMP-1AM Basurmanin infantry combat vehicles, ZU-23M Sparka antiaircraft mounts, Escadron ultra-light strike machines, Nerekhta robotic systems, Tigr-M and Rys armoured vehicles, Nona-S self-propelled artillery guns, Shilka-4 self-propelled weapon systems, Khosta self-propelled howitzers, modernised BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles with Berezhok combat unit, as well as army trucks and tractors based on Ural and KAMAZ automobiles, etc.).
At the Alabino training ground, forum guests and foreign delegations learned about capabilities of small arms developed by Tula gunsmiths. In five days, this site spent 70,000 munitions, including 18,000 rounds for advanced sniper systems and machine guns.
Demonstration flights of the Swifts, Russian Knights and Golden Eagles aerobatic teams took place over the Kubinka airfield. The August 1st Chinese Air Force’s pilotage group took part in these flights for the first time.
Demonstrations of the modern equipment’s possibilities were also held in the Western, Southern, Central, Eastern military districts and Northern Fleet. Static expositions involved more than 870 modern and promising samples of the Russian Armed Forces military equipment and armaments.
The forum hosted 155 events of the scientific-and-business programme attended by prominent public figures, military experts, general designers, representatives of the state customer and leading scientists, including representatives of nine foreign countries.
Total number of the business programme’s participants exceeded 11,000 people, with over 2,500 that were highly qualified specialists.
The Russian Defence Ministry signed 31 state contracts with 20 enterprises of the Defence Industrial Complex for a total amount of over 130 billion roubles. This became one of the key events.
As a result of all the forums, military experts selected 337 innovative developments and projects to be of interest for the state’s defence and security.
Forum events were covered by over 2,300 media representatives, including some 450 foreign journalists.
The JSC Russian Helicopters awarded Forum Grand Prix 2018
The Army 2018 Forum’s key figures (participants, exhibits, scientific-and-business events, foreign delegations, exhibition space sizes) are 1.5 times higher than those of the 2017 Forum.
Thus, the scope of the forum exposition, level and representation of foreign delegations, volume of contracts concluded, relevance and novelty of the scientific-and-business programme, as well as intensity of dynamic showings testify to the increased credibility of the Army 2018 Forum among the world exhibitions of military hardware and armaments.
The total attendance of all the forums exceeded one million people.
