MOSCOW. Nov 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The rate of modernization of the Russian defense ministry lags behind that of the military reform in Russia, Alexander Piskunov, an auditor of the Russian Audit Chamber, says.
"While the Defense Ministry has done good job of defining the nature of future wars, the composition of the Armed Forces, and forms and methods of contemporary combat operations, the defense industry is clearly lagging behind," Piskunov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
Commenting on the reasons of the lag, Piskunov referred to materials of inspections, conducted by the Audit Chamber. "The inspections demonstrate that given a sharp increase in expenditures on the state defense order, the production output growth decreases, while the costs of a number of arms already exceed those in the international market," Piskunov said.
At the same time he emphasized that it was next to impossible to re-equip the Armed Forces under the circumstances.
According to him, the situation may be improved by stepping up control of the military-industrial commission, right up to establishing a post of a vice-premier responsible for the defense industry. In addition to that he backed establishing an independent defense products and services procurement system in Russia, which would be based on a developed contract basis, as well as a single system of arms tests and evaluations.