MOSCOW. July 18 (Interfax) - A bill allowing the Russian Guard to have military equipment, including heavy weapons, in its arsenal has been submitted to the State Duma.
The bill appeared in the database of the Russian State Duma's lawmaking activities on Monday.
Chairman of the State Duma Information Policy Committee Alexander Khinshtein, State Duma Defense Committee Chairman Andrei Kartapolov and State Duma Security Committee Chairman Vasily Piskaryov have co-sponsored the bill.
In view of the troops of the National Guard performing their missions as designated (for example, participation in combatting terrorism and extremism, participation in efforts in support of states of emergency, martial law, the legal regime of a counterterrorist operation, participation in territorial defense in the Russian Federation, etc.), in addition to small arms and automotive equipment, the troops will have in their inventories such weapons and hardware as transport airplanes, combat, transport and multipurpose helicopters, combat infantry vehicles, armored personnel carriers and other armored combat vehicles, certain artillery systems, communication systems, speedboats, and engineering vehicles, an explanatory note to the bill says.
In this regard, this bill suggests replacing the term "weapons" (which comprises devices or items constructively designed to defeat live targets or other kinds of targets or to transmit signals) with the term "armament" (a collection of weapons and technical devices enabling their employment) in the text of the Law On the Troops of National Guard.
Furthermore, the term "combat vehicles (equipment)," meaning the main part of combat equipment designed for combat, will be replaced in the existing law with the term "military equipment (hardware)," which means various technical devices provided to troops for combat and day-to-day operations, according to the note.
Essentially, the bill suggests bringing the texts of existing legal rules in line with reality through a modification of the conceptual apparatus, which will help fix existing legal gaps and give formal certainty to the rules subject to modification, the explanatory note says.