KOVROV, Vladimir Region. Jan 24 (Interfax-AVN) - The conflict at the Degtyarev plant, the largest defense industry enterprise in the Vladimir region, entered a new stage on Friday as Vladimir Larin claimed he had been elected the plant's director general.
Larin held a news conference in Vladimir announcing his election to the post of the plant's director general and early termination of duties of his predecessor Alexander Tmenov. He said he was elected by an extraordinary meeting of the plant's shareholders on December 14, 2002.
"Right after that meeting, the board of directors of the Degtyarev plant made a statement claiming that the meeting was not legitimate," Lyudmila Petrova, the press secretary of the company told Interfax-Military News Agency. "The plant's personnel sent an open letter to the country's leaders asking them to protect the 15,000-strog personnel of Degtyarev from illegal activity of the MDM group," she said.
The board of the Perm region court decided on November 12, 2002 that the MDM group (MDM stands for Inter-regional Business Club) must return the 43 percent of the Degtyarev plant's shares worth a total of USD40m to the plant. The decision has not been implemented.
A report on the situation at the plant has been submitted to Minister of Industry, Science and Technologies Ilya Klebanov, Petrova said. The minister has promised several times to look into the conflict, but nothing has been dome to restore law and ensure normal functioning of the plant, he noted.
The Degtyarev plant specializes in making cannons and small arms (the 12.7-mm Kord machine-gun, the 30-mm GSh-30 two-barrel cannon), missile armaments (the 3UBK20 round with the 9M119M missile, the Igla-S man-portable anti-aircraft missile system), equipment for the atomic energy industry, motorbikes, batteries, etc.