The epic with the Russian State Defense Order continues. 2012 is already in full swing, so to speak, and the percentage of state defense orders for the current year barely reaches 77.
The other day, a remarkable meeting was held on pricing in the field of the state defense order, which was attended by a person who, in the rank of deputy prime minister, oversees this industry - Dmitry Rogozin. At this meeting, heated debates once again flared up that the manufacturers of new weapons for the Russian army are trying to overwhelm prices, and the Ministry of Defense is not happy with this state of affairs.
The main subject of the dispute was 5 submarine missile carriers, created according to the project 955A "Borey". The United Shipbuilding Corporation wishes to receive 26 billion rubles for each of the Boreyevs for its work. Representatives of the main military department of Russia are inclined to believe that such a price is absolutely inadequate and includes those costs that have absolutely nothing to do with the production process.
However, this is far from the beginning of the story. A few days before the meeting, Dmitry Rogozin received a letter from USC, in which prices for new submarines were justified. This letter was immediately forwarded to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov with the aim of the military department making a detailed analysis of the presented pricing algorithm from the USC and giving a detailed answer on what exactly does not suit the military.
However, for several days, Mr. Serdyukov and the entire ministry were silent like fish, and only a day before the start of the meeting they gave their answer, which was approximately the following: we are not satisfied with such prices and period - such is the analysis from the RF Ministry of Defense …
As a result of the meeting, which, in addition to Dmitry Rogozin, was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Defense and personally by the head of the USC, Mr. Trotsenko, it turned out that the terms for concluding contracts would again have to be postponed indefinitely due to the fact that no consensus was reached. And, unfortunately, many of us have already become accustomed to this. Another thing is noteworthy here: for the first time, a state official in charge of the State Defense Order, and in this case it was Rogozin, was supported not by the military department, but by the arms manufacturers.
At the stage of previous meetings, criticism was heard only against the shipbuilding corporation from the lips of both representatives of the Ministry of Defense and from the former curator of the transactions, Igor Sechin.
It turns out that the situation in this case, as it was a stalemate, remains so. How long will the launch of the State Defense Order continue on the brakes?
Apparently, the purchases of Boreyev will not begin until either USC makes an offer from even higher spheres than the RF Ministry of Defense, which USC, as stated in the famous film, cannot refuse. Or the number of units of submarine missile carriers purchased will have to be cut in order to reach the sums laid down in the military budget.
In the meantime, these exits loom only on the horizon, the State Defense Order continues to stall to a certain extent. And the longer this slippage, the less chances the parties have to settle the conflict in a civilized way. Today the situation looks such that even if contracts between the Ministry of Defense and the USC on the fact of Boreyev supplies are concluded, then someone will definitely remain extremely dissatisfied. And the saddest thing is that the stumbling block is money again. It seems that this is precisely the force that can hinder the modernization of the Russian army much more than any other accompanying negative factors. Apparently Stalin's "Personnel decide everything" can be paraphrased as "Money decides everything" in relation to the situation with the Russian state defense order of the model of recent years.
