Adopted 600 projects that upgrade the entire defense complex of the country
The defense industry’s main product is military, and the main customer is the Ministry of Defense. The military department, like the industry, is now in the process of active reformation — old mistakes are being corrected, combat training is increasing, the relationship with industry is structured.
Three whales of the Ministry of Defense
Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Ruslan Tsalikov noted that there are three whales that hold the defenses of any country. The first - weapons and military equipment. The second is infrastructure. The third is personnel and a block of social issues. The lag in any of these segments, according to the deputy minister, inevitably weakens military strength.
Ruslan Tsalikov affirmatively stated that today the troops receive the latest models of military equipment, which by the 2020 year, as planned, will amount to no less than seventy percent of the entire fleet of combat vehicles.
Speaking about the infrastructure, the representative of the Ministry of Defense highlighted the housing problem, which for a long time was a headache for the Armed Forces. Today, this issue is being actively addressed.
And the personnel policy seems to have found the right path. The mindless dismissal of experienced officers who fell under strange cuts was terminated. On the contrary, now many previously transferred to the reserve, returned to service. The monetary allowance for the servicemen has become quite worthy. The process of training in higher military educational institutions is being improved. The number of contract soldiers is increasing.
Bureaucracy in the ranks
Administrative and legal issues of defense management cause someone to get bored, and for those who work in the defense industry, they always evoke the most lively interest. Without a quality defense industrial bureaucracy, to rhythmically saturate the Armed Forces with modern weapons for some reason it does not work.
First Deputy Chairman of the Military Industrial Commission, Ivan Kharchenko, spoke about how the regulatory framework of the military-industrial complex is being improved:
- We remember the well-known story on the central heating system two years ago, when the industry in disputes with the Ministry of Defense came to a standstill and it was not possible to determine the price of some complex military products, for example, submarines or complex aviation complexes. And all this came to a situation where Putin, being the chairman of the government, had to personally put an end to the protracted conflicts, because if he had not done this, the state defense order would have simply been disrupted. By the way, he broke down more than once
The problem was systemic, because the legislation in force at that time, namely the notorious 94 federal law, allowed government contracts to be concluded only at fixed fixed prices. And how can one determine the firm price for a submarine as the head product to be manufactured for seven years, and at the time of the conclusion of the contract it is not clear which weapon systems will be installed there, which materials will be used. Therefore, the fixed price was in principle indefinable.
Last year, the Military-Industrial Commission drafted a federal law on the state defense order, which contained at the time of introduction a number of innovations. In particular, he made it possible to find such a way to conclude a contract that allowed the industry, first, to work in comfortable conditions, and secondly, the state customer to be in the legal field.
The law was very vigorously discussed in the State Duma. A special working group was created, and as a result, the law has undergone a significant change. And the main positive moments, the norms of the law include the following.
First, state regulation of prices has been established for military products. This has not happened since the transition to a new market economy.
Secondly, enterprises are guaranteed the profitability of their work.
Thirdly, the Russian industry is protected. Priority is given to domestic manufacturers of defense products.
Fourth. These are guarantees to enterprises-executives of the state defense order, if an order is not placed in a given fiscal year, and the enterprise is unique, it will not be claimed today, but suppose in a year or two.
Now the Military Industrial Commission is working on the preparation of a number of legal acts arising from the adoption of the 275 federal law on state defense orders. A total of eight government decrees are planned. The work must be completed by October in order for the entire industry to work from 1 in January under completely new legal conditions. Ultimately, this will lead to clarity and timeliness of the execution of the state defense order.
Defense - on the first frontier
The fact that the military-industrial complex, after its complete restructuring, should become the locomotive of the entire industry, is perceived almost as an axiom. What is the objective situation in the defense sector of our economy now?
Andrey Klepach, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, spoke about this with knowledge of the subject:
- How effective can the defense industry complex be the locomotive of our entire economy? Last year, engineering increased by six and six tenths of a percent. But the military-industrial complex gave a growth rate of about fifteen percent, this year we expect that it will be somewhere eighteen to nineteen percent. The defense industry is indeed one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy. And the role of the locomotive can be said to justify.
But one cannot ignore the fact that the share of the defense industry and its revenues in the total volume of our industry are in fact not very large. In the whole industry it is five percent. In mechanical engineering, about a third. We have a huge complex, and the weight of the ruble, which is earned in it, is still small.
Despite these quantitative parameters, the quality of growth, that is, the intellectual quality, is quite large. Take the aircraft industry, its share in our GDP is almost negligible, at the level of two tenths of a percent. But, from the point of view of new technologies, its contribution is from fifteen to twenty percent. In this regard, the contribution of defense enterprises to the technological development of Russia is very large. According to expert estimates, from forty to fifty percent. And this is not only the knowledge that is in universities and academies, it is knowledge that is embodied in the metal, products, technologies that work. In Vladimir Vladimirovich’s article there is an expression “smart defense”. In this case, the defense industry is a smart economy, which determines that Russia is a country that not only sits on an oil or gas needle, but a country that still has brains and hands. These hands are creative, they are competitive. Therefore, it is very important to support this intellectual component of our economic growth.
Fighting U-turn
Aircraft industry, according to Klepach, leads the domestic industry. Therefore, the position on the discussed issue of UAC President Mikhail Pogosyan was particularly interesting.
According to him, the aviation industry will have to solve a very complex set of interrelated tasks related to the need to increase the supply of military aircraft, create a modern bench base and re-equip aircraft building enterprises, create a new military-technical reserve for the subsequent launch of breakthrough products to the market. our competitiveness in the global market for the next 30-40 years.
In the field of front-line aviation, as the UAC president said, we are in good positions in terms of the competitiveness of our products, occupying 13% in the global production of combat aircraft.
Mikhail Pogosyan listed six main tasks facing the domestic aviation industry:
- The first is the stabilization of enterprises and debt restructuring. More than 150 billion rubles were allocated for this purpose.
The second is a joint product line with the military, optimization of the model range, which made it possible to concentrate the human and financial resources of the industry solely on prospective samples.
The third is a multiple increase in the production of aircraft. In 2012, we completed the state defense order, putting 35 new combat aircraft. In 2013, UAC will already supply 70 units of aircraft.
The fourth is the creation of a unique scientific and technical reserve based on fundamentally new aviation systems, such as the T-50 and the development of breakthrough technologies on samples already supplied by the Air Force, such as the Su-35.
The fifth is the development of human resources, and in two directions. On the one hand, we must provide the Armed Forces with modern training equipment that allows the military pilot to master new aviation systems. On the other hand, thinking about the future, we must provide industry with personnel capable of solving the tasks of the future.
The sixth task is dictated by the implementation of the previous ones - the need to reform the management of programs within the corporation. This allows:
a) to exercise consolidated control over the course of the implementation of state defense orders and export contracts;
b) create a unified base of developments and technologies for the corporation and more effectively manage innovations, and consequently, the possibility of their application not only in the interests of one specific program but also other programs, including in the civilian segment.
Bidding declassified
Where there is state support, direct or indirect, alas, there are always temptations to bite off a piece of the budget allocated by the state. The defense industry has a structure that monitors these risks and effectively fights against financial irregularities. This is the Federal Defense Order Service.
Its leader, Alexander Potapov, voiced very significant figures:
- In 2012, our service monitored more than 1200 contracts and revealed violations of more than 16 billion rubles. At the same time 2 billion rubles were returned to the federal treasury. What is 16 billion rubles? These are more than 6 thousands of three-bedroom apartments for officer families, or 12 schools per thousand students with a stadium and swimming pool. In addition, we check today not all one hundred percent of contracts. The real scale of violations, of course, exceeds the amount of identified. The ongoing process of identifying violations allows us to make some generalizations.
The main problem with the placement of the state defense order is as follows: this is a violation by government customers and members of tender commissions of the requirements for placing orders, in particular, this is an illegal restriction for participation in tenders, including through unreasonably secret tenders by state customers. Manipulations in the preparation of documentation when placing orders, that is, the introduction of illegal requirements or the lack of necessary requirements for participants.
Systemic problems include the fact that government customers are not able or unwilling to take measures of civil liability in respect of the executors. So, we found that the total amount of penalties for violation of the conditions of government contracts over the past year amounted to more than 10,5 billion rubles. At the same time, no one was in a hurry to exact it. Just recently, it became known that the Ministry of Defense took measures to recover more than 4 billion rubles from the perpetrators.
It is impossible to overestimate the fact of public control over procurement in the defense sector. We strive to overcome the departmental secrecy that has developed historically, due to the specifics of many materials with which we deal. We are now building a system of feedback with the society, creating Public Councils of the Rosoboronzakaz, where we want to invite veterans of the military-industrial complex, experts representing the specifics of the national defense industry, journalists who are interested in our work.
The weapon will grow wiser
The Foundation for Advanced Studies was established recently, but it already has something to be proud of. Fund manager Andrei Grigoriev spoke about what is being done today, and what the plans for the day after tomorrow are:
- We must show the ability to "look beyond the horizon" and respond to the threats not only of today, but also of tomorrow, even the day after tomorrow. The President of Russia has set the planning horizon at thirty to fifty years. We plan to solve this problem together with the institutes of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
However, the work on forecasting current scientific and technical positions may turn out to be meaningless if samples created using some revolutionary technologies that are not available to us suddenly come into service with a potential enemy. We should not miss such a breakthrough.
But breakthrough directions are not enough to detect and predict. It is necessary to fully ensure their implementation.
To this end, it is planned to create laboratories in cooperation with leading defense industry enterprises and leading universities in the country, which will be structural units of enterprises and will only deal with the tasks of the foundation. It is in such laboratories with young motivated teams who are not distracted by routine and solve only one main task, we plan to place our orders.
A serious barrier to technical modernization today is the restriction on the use of foreign technologies, equipment, and electronic bases in defense development. Such approaches are unacceptable for us. Our research should be based solely on advanced hardware and software. The principle of the fund - everything is allowed, except for the use of outdated technologies and tools.
The Advanced Research Foundation was created just a few months ago, but more than 600 proposals have already been received on what we should do.
Alexander Suvorov said: "They don't take the city by standing." The foundation's strategy is not only to achieve success in specific research, but also its development, which is impossible without the constant build-up of intellectual resources. I am sure that these precious resources exist in Russia, and with them we are invincible.
When the electromagnetic gun shoots
Vladimir Fortov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke about fundamental research in the interests of national defense:
- The Academy of Sciences has always been closely associated with defense research. This connection was informal and very important to us. And we are going to revive this connection at a new level in the modernization program. Today, one of the problems that I would like to discuss is that we need to establish new cooperation on a new basis, we need to make defense research attractive and popular among young scientists again.
There is an old problem. Things that, it would seem, can be done in a short period of time, stretch for a very long time, it discourages young people from going into our industry to engage in defense research. Very often there are different kinds of ideas, for example, radar absorbing coatings that are entirely made with the RAS, electromagnetic weapons, and many other things that very quickly go to the implementation stage, and then there is a slip. With this, too, must be fought. Perhaps it makes sense to create some kind of virtual laboratories where, on the one hand, scientists of the Academy of Sciences would work and do their work. And when the development had already passed into the stage of practical application, employees of defense and applied institutes could join in there. Today, the absence of such a bridge is very cool slows down our work, and we spend months on what can be done in a few days.
Look around in the compartments
Alexander Rukshin, a member of the expert council of the military-industrial complex, criticized the haste of other reforms carried out in the military department and suggested that it is more prudent to assess the current situation so as not to err in choosing development paths:
- Today, the Ministry of Defense is clearly experiencing a gap between research organizations and ordering departments. It should be noted that in the conditions of uninterrupted reforming of the Armed Forces, the research organizations of the Ministry of Defense, unfortunately, have lost many scientific directions. Some scientific schools are irretrievably lost.
Often, customers of military equipment do not have all the information about the current state of affairs at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex, the level of their production capacity, scientific potential, emerging problems, both financial and industrial. This negatively affects the efficiency, quality of a comprehensive expert assessment of decisions made, the timely identification of coordination and resolution of emerging issues.
In the naval charter fleet There is a very serious team. When a difficult situation arises that requires some radical decisions, a command is issued: "Stop! Look around in the compartments!"
I believe that today it’s not too late to calm down, “look around in the compartments,” and then begin to act. However, our discussion just allows us to see what we sometimes do not notice in a hurry.
Tanks drive onto the podium
In September, an exhibition of weapons will be held in Nizhny Tagil, where you can see the weapons of tomorrow too. And the arms salon itself opens a new page in the formation of a very positive image of the domestic defense industry.
Alexei Zharich - Deputy General Director of Uralvagonzavod spoke about a fundamental change in the format of the exhibition, which should make it even more attractive and informative. On behalf of the UVZ and the gun show organizers in Nizhny Tagil, Alexei Zharich invited to visit the exhibition to evaluate the quality of the work done and see not only the weapons of today, but also experimental developments, in particular, in the field of robotics.
Dmitry Rogozin summed up the discussion:
“I would not like to evaluate the speeches that were made,” the vice-premier said in conclusion. - You yourself will evaluate them in depth, in the scale of the tasks solved by the team that today works in the Military Industrial Commission, in the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and, of course, in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. A large, major, serious task, the solution of which, as a matter of fact, I have already said, is comparable to global projects that were once solved by a Soviet country, but that, nevertheless, is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to move towards a goal that must be clearly defined.
What we talked about today, the analysis of promising threats to our military security and national security is what should shape the shape of a future state armaments program. We have already started its formation. This is a new weapons program for the 2016-2025 years, and it certainly should be innovative.
The figures that I gave in my first speech were based on peer review, primarily by American experts. But I personally do not trust these figures, because they do not all know what we have already done to ensure that the extent of damage, which some hot heads might be planning outside our country. These scales have never been the same as they are in their calculations.
Over the past year, this year, over the next two or three years, so many breakthrough, intelligent, and daring have already been done and will be done in strategic nuclear forces in the next two or three years; that, at least for the near future, we can ensure our security in a strategic sense.
Another thing is that if now we do not understand that a new revolution has taken place in military affairs, and it is connected precisely with the advent of high-precision weapons, with the use of weapons on new physical principles, if we don’t understand this, then we will also overlook this revolution, as slept in time unmanned systems and much more. Inadmissible error. The second mistake we can not make. We will lag behind then completely.
You know, there is one old anecdote, when two Odessans talk to each other, and one says that his aunt recently ran 100 meters in just 7 seconds. The interviewee states: this is impossible, because he knows the real record in running for the hundred-meter. Yes, they answered him: the aunt does not know about the world record, but he knows the short way between the start and the finish.
So today we actually have to, as these two Odessans, in fact, find their much shorter way. We can not afford the luxury of catching up with someone. In no case. Even where we understood our lag for years to come, it’s pointless to walk on our heels, it’s pointless that the yellow jersey of the leader looms before our eyes. We need to find a much shorter way, having seen the strategic goal beyond this horizon, and try to cut off the scientific and technical angle. This is the most important task, the most difficult task of setting goals. If it is resolved, then everything will work out.
I sincerely thank Rossiyskaya Gazeta for organizing this conference.
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