MOSCOW. July 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Navy Commander-in- Chief Vladimir Kuroyedov has said the naval component of Russia's nuclear triad will be preserved.
"The underwater nuclear missile system is a separate type of weapon, it has existed and will exist, but its quality and numbers will be different," Kuroyedov said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published on Monday.
"Efforts of the nation leaders, the Defense Ministry, Navy, industry and science are aimed at this," he said.
"The Russian Navy is adopting a solid-fuel missile instead of the liquid-fuel missile. I believe that the new missile poses less danger than what we have at the moment," Kuroyedov noted.
In response to questions, he said "the aircraft carrier component of the Russian Navy will retain its current volume that it inherited from the Soviet times." "I do not see any well- grounded missions for aircraft carriers in the Russian Navy at the moment and for the future. We need not copy what our partners, for instance, the U.S., are doing," he said.
"The Russian Navy needs vessels for both the remote oceanic zone and the close sea zone. The service life will reach critical limits for all classes of naval vessels - surface, underwater, and sea - in the next decade," Kuroyedov said.
"Another issue is extremely important: it is time to launch mass production. The number of combat ships and submarines cannot fall below 300 items. We will not be able to keep within this limit if mass production will not become a priority after 2005," he said.