Sanctions as an engine of progress
Aggressive pressure from Western countries, primarily the United States, to which our country was subjected after the return of the Crimea under the jurisdiction of Russia, can play the most positive role. Evaluate all the consequences of the political cataclysm through which Kiev is now passing, and the effectiveness of sanctions for the West that they threaten to impose on Russia will be possible only in the future, and far from it. Now we will draw preliminary conclusions, which, it should be noted, are encouraging.
Take the military side. No one would ever have believed that Crimea would be able to be returned to the bosom of Russia without a single shot and with virtually no casualties. On the peninsula there was a fairly powerful army group of the armed forces of Ukraine, including a fleet, a combat Aviation, land units and, as it were, the elite marines. Those who started the coup in Kiev, for sure, were sure: “if that”, then the Crimean-Ukrainian fighters would engage in mortal combat with the “Muscovites” and defend the integrity of the “independent”. It can be assumed that our military leaders were not sure that everything would go smoothly. But Moscow did not want a big war.
And then a very interesting question arises: did the Minister of Defense, now the former, Anatoly Serdyukov, destroy the Russian Armed Forces or, on the contrary, carry out exactly those reforms that allowed to “win back” the Crimea without huge losses.
The answer will not be unequivocal.
According to a number of military experts, the reforms initiated by A. Serdyukov were in essence true, but were carried out “on a stool”. And if he still led the military department, then, more than likely, the result of the Crimean "battle" would have been different.
So it all happened that the change of ministers of defense happened very much by the way. Destiny ...
The main role in the fact that the protests in the Crimea did not turn into a bloody massacre, as it happened recently in Kiev, was played by "polite people" in a new military uniform, but without insignia.
Who are they? Some journalists announced that they were GRU special forces units and special operations forces - a new and very secret structure of the Ministry of Defense. Created MTRs were just under A. Serdyukov.
In any case, our country did not violate any international laws. By agreement with Ukraine, Russia could keep grouping thousands of troops in 25 in the Crimea. The limit was not exceeded. And if our special forces were able to take full control of the entire vital infrastructure of the peninsula and block the locations of the units of the armed forces of Ukraine, it only confirmed their high professional training.
As for the fighters "Square", one thing is clear - the state of the highest political power in Kiev did not contribute to upholding state integrity by military resistance. Those who banished Viktor Yanukovych and usurped state power are not endowed with either state wisdom, or patriotism, or, all the more, political professionalism.
The intelligence of the United States, which listens to everyone and seems to know everything, is not the best. Having invested billions of dollars in provoking “Maidan”, they saw real passionaries-revolutionaries in the capital of Ukraine who, not sparing their stomachs, threw themselves with chains and Molotov cocktails on the unarmed Berkut, Washington and all its special services were inspired. "Everything! The deed is done, the victory will be ours! ”, - so, probably, they thought across the ocean.
And it turned out like the bloggers are joking, the United States spent five billion dollars to literally make Russia regain the Crimea.
The peninsula, which for all the years of existence of the “Square” was its political backwater, was not taken into account. In addition, Bandera, periodically making raids on Sevastopol, in order to spoil and hide there, never received physical resistance. On the contrary, the same “Berkut” and the Crimean militia of “zapadentsev” guarded and defended.
Having grown up the homunculus of a separatist “democracy” according to only the recipes they knew, political alchemists themselves believed that it was precisely such an “independent democracy” that all the people of multinational Ukraine would be delighted with. And miscalculated.
They also miscalculated in assessing the combat capability of the Russian army, in the effectiveness of control after the Serdyukov reforms. The CIA, and even the more objective intelligence department of the US Department of Defense, most likely read the Russian press, which had angrily branded the former minister, very carefully. And they believed: the Armed Forces of Russia are in decline, Sergei Shoigu could not correct the mistakes of his predecessor in such a short time.
The fact that in the area of strengthening the defense of Russia there were very serious deep-seated processes was not taken into account. After all, it is no coincidence that Barack Obama referred our country only to the category of regional powers. After all, this is only the United States - the center of the world, before which all non-democratic regimes should tremble before the military might. And who is regional on the planet, who is sovereign, who is a democrat, and who is a dictator, Washington alone is called upon to decide. True, by whom it is called, it is completely incomprehensible.
In the US, there was no action plan for the case that took place in the Crimea. What to do? Introduce your fleet into the Black Sea? What's next? They went the usual way: they began to frighten sanctions. And again a puncture.
Our country was so long and so diligently pulled into the global market, transnational corporations were so actively taking root in Russia that now any restrictions against our country inevitably hit the United States, and even more so by their European and Asian partners.
Moreover, the threat of Western partners to curtail technological cooperation with Russia unambiguously leads to a technological take-off of the domestic industry.
Are sanctions critical for the defense industry complex of our country? To the minimum extent. As the head of Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaykin, said recently, the more sanctions imposed by the United States against the export of Russian weaponsthe more this export is growing. Last year, our military items were exported worth 13,2 billion dollars, which was a record. And this - despite the fact that in the samples supplied abroad there are a lot of components from Western production, this is the desire of customers.
But in the technology, which goes into service with the Russian army, the share of foreign components is insignificant. Moreover, there are no American components at all. Various microcircuits or night vision systems, for example, are the product of either transnational corporations, in which the US influence is not decisive, or are produced by joint ventures with the participation of Russia.
The French were stupid. Paris itself actively lobbied for the implementation of joint projects in the field of military-technical cooperation. And for the future, very profitable deals have been planned for wheeled armored vehicles, for various weapons systems and weapon control systems. The construction of two “Mistral”. And now, to please Washington, give up all this?
The refusal of the "Mistral", by the way, will cause great joy among our shipbuilders and sailors.
Representatives of the French defense industry, rescuing "Mistral", recently said that now it is, in its essence, civilian ships, and not warships. After they become saturated with appropriate equipment, they will be fighting, and the French are allegedly not going to do this. And why was the deal made? For metal troughs? Well, let them leave them to themselves, and then suing them for a long time for the failure of the contract.
The Germans allegedly refuse to equip us with a training center in Mulino according to NATO standards. Unpleasant But at a number of past weapon exhibitions, Russian developers showed several projects of equipment for landfills using 21st century technologies. So here we can win.
There will be a problem with microprocessors. But here, without Washington’s sanctions, on the initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, steps have been taken to create a powerful domestic production base in the field of everything related to microelectronics and software.
The only thing that will have a negative effect on the Russian defense industry is a break in ties with the Ukrainian defense-industrial complex. All Ukrainian high-tech industry is alive only thanks to well-established ties with the Russian industry. Accordingly, our manufacturers of military equipment have always been confident in the stability of such cooperation. And very many military-technical products incorporate a fair share of units and parts made in Ukraine.
And Kiev declared that such a friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation would no longer be tolerated. According to the understanding of the current usurpers of power, Ukrainian industry should not contribute to strengthening the military power of the “aggressor”. That is, Russia.
All contracts will break! And without taking into account that the price of these contracts for the Ukrainian treasury is hundreds of millions of dollars. Get out, Muscovites, get out! Like children: in spite of my mother I will freeze my ears.
If it happens that Ukrainian enterprises are indeed banned from supplying their products to Russia, then the country's aircraft industry, including aircraft engine building, will suffer the most. Zaporizhzhya Motor-Sich is one of the best engine-building enterprises in the whole of Europe. It has been preserved and developed solely due to the long and dynamically developing ties with Russia.
On all our helicopters: Mi-8, Mi-171, Mi-24, Mi-35, Mi-26, Mi-28, Ka-27, Ka-29, Ka-32, Ka-50, Ka-52 are gas turbine engines made in Zaporozhye. Under the armaments program up to 2020, the Russian Air Force plans to purchase only attack helicopters about 1000 units. This means that we will need 2000 engines VK-2500 - two for each car. And 1000 the same, in reserve. 3000 thousands of engines minimum - guaranteed order for Ukraine. Their price is more than a billion dollars. Does Ukraine need this money?
In the Leningrad Region, the Klimov domestic engine-building enterprise built the Petersburg Motors plant. From December 2012 of the year, it began serial production of the Russian engine components VK-2500 for the Ka-52 and Mi-28. Of course, there are problems, and they still need to be addressed. But the first step was the hardest, the plant was started, and in time it will reach its full capacity.
Problems will arise in the rocket and space industry. Yuzhmash manufactures Zenit launch vehicles. From Ukraine, we receive elements of the Proton and Soyuz launch vehicle control systems, as well as the International Space Station. In cooperation with Antonov Design Bureau and Aviant plant, we build transport planes An-140 and An-148. With them, we are also going to upgrade the An-124 Ruslan. Even for an absolutely new Russian military transport aircraft Il-476, as we know, we get ready-made parts, instruments and units for each board on 35.
The break of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation ties in the field of high technologies, it is worth repeating, will hit our country much more significantly than US sanctions. But what will be the result of independent political ambitions of Kiev to please Washington?
Russia is having difficulty, but it will fill its niche that Ukrainian imports now occupy with their own products. But the “Square” will forever lose its very “independent” industry. To the world community, in which Kiev is so eager, Ukrainian technical crafts are not at all interesting and unnecessary. Tens of thousands of highly skilled designers, technologists, engineers, workers will be out of work. Aviant, Motor Sich, Yuzhmash and other flagships of the Soviet industry, which miraculously survived on Ukrainian soil, would stop and soon collapse under the weight of debts.
But the industry of Belarus will go up the hill. It has finally been officially announced that the Russian-Belarusian cooperation in the field of military-technical cooperation is given the green light and the most favored regime is being created. As the State Secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Grigory Rapota said about the prospect of ending cooperation in the military sphere with Ukraine, “Belarus will be the first one to consult on this subject.” This is about the possibility of replacing the Ukrainian partnership.
Like most of my fellow citizens, I do not suffer from headache. I understand: there will be problems. But just as I know that the Russian "defense" can solve them. So, Western sanctions against Russia will become the engine of our technical progress.
Russia has a real chance to make such a breakthrough, which will lead the industry immediately to the sixth technological order, actually passing the fifth. It will not be easy, but the end result will exceed all expectations. The danger is that our “sworn friends” will understand it very soon, and they will not introduce full sanctions, and soon they will be silently canceled altogether ...
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