Every two years, Nizhny Tagil hosts, and Uralvagonzavod organizes the International Exhibition of Arms, Military Equipment and Ammunition (RAE), which this year has become the 10th anniversary.
Almost 200 enterprises took part in the exhibition. They placed 2,700 exhibits demonstrating the latest achievements in the military-industrial complex, 98 large-sized ones were in open areas. The organizers reported that 52 official foreign delegations visited the exhibition, 13 of which were represented by the ministers of defense, chiefs of general staffs and commanders-in-chief of the ground forces, heads of departments for the purchase of weapons. In total, in four days of work, almost 50 thousand people came to see the demonstration program and exhibits, over 600 journalists arrived to cover the event.
On the second day, the exhibition was attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov. The central events of RAE-2015 were the II Military-Industrial Conference with the participation of a number of high-ranking representatives of the Russian government and a round table with the participation of the heads of the State Duma and Federation Council committees on defense and security. For the first time, the three State Duma committees met almost in full force outside their native walls. 20 parliamentarians arrived in Nizhny Tagil specifically to participate in RAE-2015, their active participation gave the exhibition special significance and a high level of substantive discussions. The central topics of conferences, round tables and the exhibition as a whole were import substitution in the defense industry, competition in the global arms market and overcoming crisis phenomena in the economy.
The Prime Minister's visit to RAE 2015 was accompanied by a stir from the press and visitors. While in the pavilions Dmitry Medvedev, accompanied by Dmitry Rogozin and Oleg Sienko, General Director of Uralvagonzavod Corporation, was able to inspect the exposition quite calmly, on the street the high-ranking guests were immediately surrounded by a crowd, which could only be squeezed through with the help of security officers.
Uralvagonzavod, in particular, presented at the exhibition two vehicles based on the Armata platform: the T-14 tank and the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle. But they were never shown in action, although this point was, perhaps, one of the main intrigues of the exhibition. Already at the end of RAE-2015 it became known that "Armata" in "all its glory" will be shown only two years later at RAE-2017. This was reported to TASS by the deputy. General Director of Uralvagonzavod Alexey Zharich. “We hope that in 2017 the Ministry of Defense will allow us to demonstrate the fighting qualities of the latest models of Russian weapons, including the Armata,” Zharich said.
Before the start of the demonstration program, Dmitry Medvedev made an introductory speech. The Prime Minister considers modernization and technical re-equipment to be one of the strategic tasks today. “Today our country is a key international player in the field of military-technical cooperation and ranks second in the world in terms of sales of military equipment and weapons. Of course, we would very much like to preserve these positions … Today it is perfectly clear to everyone that our country is not in the most simple situation. The course to replace imported technologies is not ad hoc, not momentary, it is a long-term course. It will not change our plans for the implementation of the state armament program, for the development of our military-technical cooperation. I would also like to specially emphasize this. One of our strategic tasks is the modernization and technical re-equipment of defense enterprises,”the Prime Minister said in particular.
Dmitry Medvedev outlined the situation as a whole, while at the Military-Industrial Conference a few hours earlier, Dmitry Rogozin outlined the situation in more detail. From the very beginning, the Vice Prime Minister noted that he would like to speak not only with a welcoming speech to the conference participants, but also to draw the attention of those present at a number of important points. Rogozin highlighted the most important topics for today: import substitution, the problem of the products of Ukrainian enterprises, personnel issues and global reindustrialization.
“The most important thing is to understand the details of how we will live in the coming years, how we will put things in order in order to make the most efficient use of every ruble, every penny invested in the state defense order, especially at this time. It is a difficult time, a time of economic pressure on our country … We understand that the main goal of import substitution is not the reproduction of foreign products, but the creation of constructively more advanced domestic products on a modern technological base. We have many tasks, but the most important one: while solving the problems of rearmament of the army and navy, we must withstand this difficult time, go through it with dignity, strengthen ourselves, so that the trend towards industrialization of the country will never be challenged and stopped by anyone. The present time requires from the defense industry not only the solution of internal problems inherent in the industry, we today stand, in fact, as the vanguard of strengthening the power of the country, its industrial potential. The Russian government has organized an annual monitoring of all consolidated state-owned companies. As part of this work, the issue of ensuring the transparency of corporate procedures is being considered. On September 1, the Federal Law “On Amendments to the Federal Law“On State Defense Order”and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” came into force. In accordance with this law, the work of the system will begin, which will contain information on settlements for the state defense order,”said Dmitry Rogozin.
The last cited thesis of Dmitry Rogozin for NVO was commented by Maxim Kuzyuk, General Director of the Technodinamika holding of the Rostec state corporation: “The main question at the conference is the updated law on the state defense order, which will require administrative work, it provides greater control over the spending of funds at enterprises. In principle, this is not new for us, because we both in the holding and in the state corporation have introduced a control system, which is necessary for the effective management of enterprises. But the Defense Ministry wants more transparency. This is the right measure at this stage, although it will require more effort, administrative support, banks will be loaded, we, the Ministry of Defense … an enterprise that manufactures products. This stage of development will probably be the next. At the exhibition, the Tekhnodinamika holding presented the transport and charging systems for the S-300 and S-400 complexes.
The public was not allowed close to the T-14 tank and the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle, made on the Armata platform. Photo by the author
Of course, the special attention of the visitors of the exhibition was attracted by the demonstration, which was divided into two parts: the combat one, where the units performed the task of destroying the conditional terrorist group, and the mobile one, during which the running and operational capabilities of individual units were demonstrated. The show was also attended by Mi-8 helicopters, which provided air support to the ground forces. Among the pieces of equipment, spectators saw in action self-propelled howitzers MSTA-S, T90S and T72B3 tanks, BMPT Terminator, BMD-4M, ZSU Shilka-M4 and Tunguska M1, TOS-1A and other equipment. In the second part of the program, I was impressed not so much by the technique itself as by the virtuoso control of it. Experienced drivers forced their cars to overcome obstacles with amazing accuracy and ease, and even the rally athletes envied the driver-mechanic of the T90S tank.
In the demo program, more than 9000 ammunition was used, more than 500 targets were destroyed. Every day, 500 people and 62 samples of ground and air equipment were involved in the show, which for the first time showed the interaction of various types of troops and equipment. At the final press conference it was noted that the T-90S, T-90SM, T-72B3 tanks and other promising developments aroused the greatest interest among foreign delegations. In particular, the delegation of Saudi Arabia showed interest in the T-90SM. In addition, as part of RAE-2015, a contract was signed with India for the supply of spare parts for T-72 tanks.
In two years, Nizhny Tagil will host the next, 11th RAE salon. The decision has already been made at the level of the country's government. For the first time, visitors will see a nightly demonstration of military equipment. Also, the organizers announced their readiness to significantly increase the number of full-scale samples and exhibition stands. RAE-2017 will run from September 6-9.
