Kommersant: “Vladimir Putin visits plant producing automatic troop control equipment”
The Russian Army's communications equipment is still backward.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting in Voronezh yesterday on the development of the Armed Forces' automated command and control system. He did not mince his words and said that most of the control, reconnaissance and communications systems in the Russian Army were outdated and called for their drastic modernisation.
Putin's plane landed at the airfield of the Voronezh joint stock aircraft building company (VASO) at around two p.m. He was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, the President's Plenipotentiary Representative to the Central Federal District, Georgy Poltavchenko, representatives of the General Staff, the Moscow Military District, some military research and design institutions.
However, the high-powered delegation did not linger at the aviation plant and the motorcade headed for the Voronezh Communications Research Institute, which is the leading enterprise of the Sozvezdiye defence concern (a 100% state-owned holding company which comprises 16 enterprises in the Central Federal District).
Eyewitnesses say a large quantity of armour had been brought to the courtyard in front of the research institute's main building in one of Voronezh's main streets, Plekhanovskaya, specially for the Prime Minister's visit. There was also a staff tent where Putin was shown the latest examples of communications equipment which he and other high officials discussed later. Rank-and-file institute employees were taking pictures of the Prime Minister's visit from the institute's windows overlooking the inner courtyard.
Putin opened the meeting on providing the army with modern military equipment with critical remarks. He recalled that the experience of recent local conflicts, which showed that modern systems of control, reconnaissance and communications were "critical for the combat capability of a modern army" and reproached the Russian defence industry for lack of proper coordination among the enterprises in this area. To this day, a general designer for the development of an automated tactical control system has not been appointed, an integrated structure to supervise this area of development has not been formed, and there is no comprehensive programme that would make it possible to "concentrate resources on the planned projects."
Retired Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky, an expert on automated control systems, told Kommersant that at present only strategic automated control systems are functioning normally, but they too are outdated. At the operational-tactical level (battalion-brigade) the Russian Army has fallen far behind Western countries in the last 20 years. The arms of the service, military districts and fleets use their own automatic control systems that are not integrated into a single system.
In order to bridge the gap, some equipment will have to be imported, licences and technologies will have to be bought and perhaps joint projects with foreign partners would be needed to develop some systems, according to Mikhail Barabanov, the chief editor of the Moscow Defense Brief. Barabanov thinks it is necessary to further increase funding for these programmes, not only for R&D, but for serial procurement of equipment, which requires an increase in the Defence Ministry's procurement budget.
Sozvezdiye's First Deputy General Director told RIA Novosti that providing a single Russian Army brigade with the new Akveduk tactical control system (produced by Sozvezdiye) will cost 8 billion roubles. It comprises up to 4,000 portable computers, 3,000 radio stations and other equipment. So far not a single Russian Army brigade uses Akveduk.
Vsevolod Inyutin, Konstantin Chaplin, Leonid Didenko, Ivan Konovalov
