Translated material
Real reason
In uniform
Real reason
November 9, 2012 Alexander Golts
Appointing the new head of the General Staff, Putin very transparently hinted at the true reason for the change of leadership of the Ministry of Defense. “We have a problem, it, in principle, is so working, but I would still like to minimize the problems,” said the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, “very often recently we have been faced with changes in the requirements from the Ministry of Defense to industry. It is clear, and this naturally, life constantly makes its own adjustments, the situation in the scientific and technical field is changing rapidly, new means of conducting armed struggle appear. And, of course, we must focus on promising means, but still, there is a certain stability here. I really expect that you, together with the minister, will be able to build a stable, good partnership with our leading industrial enterprises in the field of defense industry. ”
Translated from the bureaucratic means: forget about the previous requirement for industry about the production of new modern weapons. The army should be satisfied with those weapons that are able to power the domestic defense industry. At the same time, military leaders should carefully pretend that they accept modern military equipment, and not morally outdated weapons, whose prototypes were created 30-40 years ago. So Putin is trying to close the main conflict between the Ministry of Defense and his immediate environment: Ivanov, Chemezov, Rogozin. The past management did not want to spend public funds on the acquisition of junk, and our defense industry is simply not able to create and produce modern weapons. Its structure, created by Vladimir Putin himself and the current head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, who is a parody of the Soviet system of organization of military industry, in principle is not suitable for activities in a market economy. But it is perfectly suitable for sawing 23 trillion rubles intended for the state weapons program.
For Putin, the intransigence of the Ministry of Defense has turned into a political problem: the ministry’s refusal to purchase military equipment, which was modern by name, left the factory without state order, on which the “nuclear” Putin electorate works. Serdyukov’s position prevented to spend trillions on feeding the obedient part of the population.