The second autumn month has passed, the conscription into the ranks of the Russian army has begun, the year is smoothly moving towards its logical conclusion, and the problem with the State Defense Order (State Defense Order) 2011 still remains unresolved. At the same time, literally all year, the problem with the implementation of plans to re-equip the army tried to be solved at the highest state level. In particular, at the end of spring, Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government, reported to President Dmitry Medvedev on who is to blame for the breakdowns in cooperation between the military department and manufacturers of military equipment. After such removal of the masks from the guilty, the President made a decision to dismiss all those who “organized sabotage” of GOZ-2011. Among those dismissed were Major General Vaganov, who in May 2011 was the deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the Armed Forces of the country; Vice Admiral Borisov, Deputy Chief of the Navy, and Colonel Krylov, in charge of organizing military orders. Since then, it would seem, the deal with public procurement should have gone by leaps and bounds, but that was not the case!
Great hopes were pinned on MAKS-2011, during which the UAC of Russia was to conclude multibillion-dollar contracts with the Ministry of Defense in terms of the supply of new combat training Yak-130 fighters, including the shipborne MiG-29K.
However, MAKS-2011 in Zhukovsky brought another batch of disappointments. We can say that it was at the salon that the most acute contradictions between customers and manufacturers of military equipment were revealed. They consisted in the fact that the producers knew very well that Mr. Serdyukov had money, but he was going to spend it with great tightness. The Ministry of Defense did not understand why suddenly the prices for those aircraft, in which it was most interested, suddenly jumped so rapidly. For example, we can say that one Yak-130 for the Russian Air Force was offered at a price of $ 15.4 million. As the financiers of the Ministry calculated, this is 20% more than its real value. In turn, representatives of the United Aircraft Building Company stated that this is the most optimal price, since any price lower than the proposed one would be unprofitable for their production, and therefore unacceptable.
It should be noted that the planned scale of GOZ-2011 was really impressive and continues to impress. As much as 750 billion rubles were allocated from the state treasury. The Russian army has never received such an amount during its existence since the beginning of the nineties. It was GOZ-2011 that high government officials saw as a powerful impetus for the rearmament of the aging Russian army. However, anyone can dream, and the real state of affairs often does not coincide with such visions.
In fact, contracts between the Ministry of Defense and Sevmash have failed. According to these contracts, the Russian Navy was to receive in the near future several Yasen and Borey class submarines. But such deliveries remained in the minds of high-ranking military sailors and the country's leadership. And if with Yak-130 planes at least, but you can wait, then with "Borei" - no way. Why? Because it is the Borei-class APRK that are the standard floating bases for the Bulava ICBM launch. Until 2020, such missiles should resolve the issue with a new security strategy for Russia. However, the solution is still somewhere not in the foreground.
Until the same 2020, the Government plans to allocate a colossal amount of about 20 trillion rubles for the modernization of the domestic army. This amount, among other things, became a stumbling block in the work of the already former Finance Minister Kudrin. The head of the ministry openly refused to support the policy of senior leaders about such large-scale injections into the army. A couple of months ago, many accused Alexei Kudrin of sabotage and called him a curmudgeon who "squeezes" the budgetary funds allocated for the army. The president recently also allowed himself to sharply criticize Kudrin's actions and said that he was ready to fire any person who acts as a weak link in the modernization of the Russian armed forces.
As a result, the usual business conflict between the Ministry of Defense and manufacturers of military equipment went beyond the business and reached the highest levels. If today no concrete measures are taken to save the planned modernization program, then all plans may turn into a beautiful mirage. In such a case, even a simple search for the culprit may not lead to anything. This means that we need not look for "scapegoats", but sit down at the negotiating table and find the right solution.
