Large-scale plans for the rearmament of the Russian army, as well as a series of research works in the course of the implementation of the State Armament Program (GPV) until the end of 2020 can be successfully implemented only if strict control over the financial and economic side of the program and the implementation of effective measures to combat corruption in the sphere of the Russian state defense order. This opinion was expressed by Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
According to Igor Korotchenko, at present, at the initiative of Anatoly Serdyukov, a number of measures are already being taken, which are aimed at ensuring as fully as possible control over each ruble of earmarked funds that are allocated for the implementation of the SAP. One of the measures in this direction was, in particular, the formation of a department for pricing of military products in the Ministry of Defense, as well as the reassignment of the Federal Agency for the supply of weapons, military and special equipment, as well as materiel to it under the control of the Ministry of Defense.
“Special control should be exercised in the field of research and development work and their subject matter, as well as the validity of their costs. This also includes control over the development of new types of weapons. These two areas represent the greatest number of opportunities for various kinds of financial abuse and fraud, says Igor Korotchenko, who, among other things, is the editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine. As an example to his words, the editor of a respected military publication cited a situation when the general director of one of the country's backbone design bureaus, which is part of the structure of the military-industrial complex, became the founder of a number of commercial organizations that were included in the production chain of the design bureau as co-executors defense orders. The profits received by these companies were taken offshore.
Facts of this kind require not only fundamental personnel decisions that were made in this particular case, but also a full range of response measures on the part of the Russian state in the form of initiating specific criminal cases for each fact of a corruption crime, Igor Korotchenko noted.
Last Friday, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin announced that 10% of the funds allocated for the implementation of the PRT program by 2020 are directed to research, that is, to develop new weapons systems. At the same time, the largest line of the adopted program is the purchase of modern weapon systems, for these purposes it is planned to spend up to 80% of the funds. In general, today's army rearmament program is unique for the modern history of Russia, primarily due to the amount of funding. When Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the spending last December, he admitted that even he was scared to voice the figure.
The main goal of this program is also to maintain the Russian nuclear shield at the proper level. So, according to the plans for the development of nuclear forces until 2020, 8 strategic submarines will be put into operation, the main armament of which should be the new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile itself, according to military forecasts, should go into service by the end of this year. Now the program of its state tests is in full swing.
