MOSCOW, February 21 (AVN) - The CIS military co-operation co-ordination headquarters hosted a session of the Air Defence co-ordination committee under the CIS Defence Ministers Council on Wednesday, the Military News Agency learned.
Anatoly Kornukov, chairman of the committee and Air Force commander, delivered a speech at the session. He stressed the necessity to follow the plan of money allocations to the CIS Unified Air Defence System signed by the CIS leaders. The debt of Armenian and Tajik Defence Ministries ran to RUR200,000 (USD6,900) last year, and Belarus owed more than RUR52,000 (USD1,810).
According to Kornukov, the debt increase will lead to irregular financing of the system and cancellation or decline in the quality of important measures on its development and modernisation. The matter in question is the Combat Commonwealth 2001 joint training with live firing planned for August, establishment of additional guidance points of fighter aviation in the southern direction, repairs, extension of service life and modernisation of radar armament in Central Asia, he said.