MOSCOW. April 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday that he was not going to overdramatize the state of combat readiness in the Armed Forces.
"I see nothing hopeless in the state of the Armed Forces," Ivanov told reporters after visiting the Kantemirov tank division and Taman motorized rifle division, both stationed in the Moscow region.
"There is a need to maintain the balance between the social status of servicemen and their salaries, follow the technical condition of troops and implement the armament program. If these conditions are met, our situation will change for the better even if the current financing level is preserved," the minister said.
Ivanov believes that the state of the Armed Forces mainly depends on unit commanders. "The situation is generally positive in the units where commanders really care for what is going on despite all difficulties," he said.
The minister noted that the army and navy had "lots of problems primarily related to the rearmament sphere." "Armaments and military hardware were mainly made in the 1970s and 1980s. I do not call for a major technical rearmament of troops, for it is unreal. But we would like to have equipment that could be effectively used in modern armed conflicts. These are air defense assets, small arms, including primarily sniper armament which is light and easy to operate, as well as high-precision weapons," he said.
Ivanov said he was visiting permanent readiness units during his trips to military units. "The situation is certainly a bit better there, for extra attention is paid to them," he stressed.
At the same time the defense minister called excessive the number of inspections dispatched to permanent readiness formations. "Such a big number of inspections does not allow the command of the units to work properly and distracts them from work," Ivanov added.