THEY ARE WAITING FOR S-400
by Yury Gavrilov
DEFENSE and SECURITY
July 11, 2011 Monday
Russia
DEFENSE MINISTERS OF CIS COUNTRIES DISCUSSED JOINT PROJECTS; In Sochi
defense ministers of the CIS member states were deciding how they
could strengthen defense and security of the Commonwealth together.
The defense ministers gathered for the 60th time and had to discuss
more than 20 issues. The concept of military cooperation of the
CIS countries until 2015 that Anatoly Serdyukov and his colleagues
adopted earlier implied various lines for interaction of the defense
ministries.
In Sochi defense ministers of the CIS member states were deciding
how they could strengthen defense and security of the Commonwealth
together. The defense ministers gathered for the 60th time and had to
discuss more than 20 issues. The concept of military cooperation of
the CIS countries until 2015 that Anatoly Serdyukov and his colleagues
adopted earlier implied various lines for interaction of the defense
ministries.
Despite that every CIS countries has its own army they fulfill the
tasks similar in many aspects. According to Serdyukov, the main
of them is further modernization of the national armed forces and
their adaptation to modern requirements and nature of new challenges
and threats.
It is well known how Russia helps modernization of the national armies
of the neighbors. We supply them with military hardware and armament,
we train their specialists in higher educational institutions of the
Defense Ministry and organize joint exercises. With some countries,
for instance, with Armenia, Russia has joint groups of forces. For
many years sky of the Commonwealth has been guarded by the united
air defense system. At the meeting in Sochi the ministers spoke about
the ways of its development.
Something is already been done there. For example, after putting of
air defense missile systems S-300 made in Russia on combat duty in
Belarus Russia may supply the neighbors with close-range air defense
missile system Buk-2M and with more perfect air defense system S-400.
However, this will happen not tomorrow and not even the day after
tomorrow. We need to supply our regiments and brigades of airspace
defense with S-400 first.
In any case, the neighbors can study the advanced weapon and to see
it in action already now. Big-scale exercise with firing practice
“Combat commonwealth-2011” will take place between August and
September at Ashuluk training range in Astrakhan Region once again
with participation of air force and air defense units of practically
all CIS countries.
The ministers also spoke about other joint projects. They are not
only diverse but also fairly big. For example, a united communication
and automation system should be created in the framework of military
technological cooperation of the CIS in a few years. Work on formation
of the unified military geo information system is already underway.
Serdyukov and his colleagues also spoke about interaction of combat
engineers and joint control over radiation, chemical and biological
situation on the territory of the CIS. The ministers agreed that a
special coordinating committee would work on the matters of reduction
of the quantity of accidents in the sky.
Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, July 07, 2011, p. 2