On July 26, 2011, a meeting on the state defense order was held, at which Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that this year the volume of the order amounted to 750 billion rubles, which is 1.5 times more than in the past. Moreover, to date, no contracts have been signed for approximately 30% of the total volume of the order in 2011.
According to V. V. Putin, in response to claims in their direction, the leadership of the RF Ministry of Defense puts forward a mutual demand, as a result of which prices rise exorbitantly. In addition, the prime minister stressed that, despite the fact that the inflation rate has reached 5% today, prices for some types of weapons have increased several times.
As a source from the military-industrial complex commented on the situation, the rise in prices included in the program for the state defense order until 2020 should not exceed 5-8%. However, due to the rise in prices on the world raw material market, there is already an increase in the cost per year of 9–12% for individual equipment with a long production cycle.
The Department of Defense is not authorized to arbitrarily raise or lower the inflation cap. This is the responsibility of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, which has set the inflation rate at 5–8%. The Ministry of Defense, in turn, puts these values in the requirements for public procurement.
It should be noted that at the time when defense funding was brought to reasonable levels, industrialists were no longer able to offer any new technical weapons. This has a completely logical rationale - it is necessary to invest large funds in the development and testing of new types of equipment.
At the moment, the deadlines for several projects of the state defense order have been disrupted. Due to the rise in prices for components, the construction of a corvette, submarines (3 units), Yak-130 aircraft (6 units) and BMP-3 (half of a batch of 150 units) was delayed.
In order to prevent the situation from deteriorating in the future, they intend to introduce into use a system of 100% crediting of defense contracts. This will allow the Ministry of Defense to conclude contracts with already specified prices. At the same time, industrialists will be able to purchase the necessary volumes of raw materials and remain independent of changes in prices on the world raw materials market.
As a rule, large manufacturers prefer to reinsure themselves in terms of pricing. The main thing for them is the possibility of making a final decision on the price and parameters of a particular product.
According to Mikhail Barabanov (editor-in-chief of the Moscow Defense Brief magazine), tensions between the Ministry of Defense and the Russian defense-industrial complex may escalate into a conflict. Indeed, in fact, a large-scale purchase of weapons began in such conditions in which there was no mechanism for its coordination and implementation. As a result, lapping is now taking place. The rules are being developed taking into account the ongoing implementation of large-scale defense programs. And what do we see in the end? A real disorder in matters of state defense orders and a growing hostility between the military and industrialists.
In addition, the corruption component is involved in all this confusion. Sergei Fridinsky (the chief military prosecutor) claims that over the past 1, 5 years, more than thirty officials have been convicted for the illegal use of funds for the purchase, repair and modernization of weapons.
Experts believe that the way out of this situation could be the creation of a state structure that could act as an intermediary between the military-industrial complex and the RF Ministry of Defense in matters of pricing. But, unfortunately, today the government does not plan to make such a decision.
