Russia’s President Reviews the Nation’s Military Preparedness

Dec. 25, 2019 (EIRNS)—In his opening remarks to yesterday’s Defense Ministry Board meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin reviewed the progress made in upgrading Russian military forces since the last meeting a year ago, stressing what still needs to be done, particularly in the threat environment that Russia continues to face. “Tension persists in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and on the Korean Peninsula. NATO is expanding its military infrastructure close to our borders,” he said. “The arms control regime is disintegrating, which causes serious concern.... The U.S. is expanding the capability of its global missile defense system. We see this, and we are aware of these developments.”

Putin continued: “In this context we must continue to strengthen and develop the Army and Navy, as well as to focus on the following key objectives in 2020.” The share of modern equipment in the military must rise to 70% in the Army and the Navy. “The share of modern weapons in the nuclear triad has reached 82%,” he specified, and stating that

“some of our equipment and technology are up to world standards. But in fact, as I have told our defense representatives more than once, it must be even better; our equipment must be better than the world’s best if we want to come out as the winners. This is not a game of chess where we can sometimes accept a tie. It concerns the military organization of the nation. Our equipment must be better. We can do it and we are doing it in the key spheres. But we must also do it in all spheres.”

Putin also emphasized that

“this year the United States has actually destroyed the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] INF Treaty, which is why we must monitor the potential deployment of U.S. missiles of this class around the world, but first of all in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.... We are ready to work out new arms control agreements. But until this process is launched we will continue to strengthen our nuclear forces. I am referring to the delivery of cutting-edge Avangard and Yars systems to the Strategic Missile Forces and Borei-A missile submarines to the naval nuclear forces.”