MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Air Force has suffered serious personnel losses in the past few years, former Air Force commander Pyotr Deinekin has said.
"The Air Force has suffered serious personnel losses in the past few years. As many as 34 colonel generals of those who are ripe, as they say, have been fired. These were heroes and examples of commendable service. The abolition of the Kacha Higher Pilots College was a big mistake as well," Deinekin said in an interview published in the fifth issue of the Vestnik Vozdushnogo Flota journal.
The current Air Force commander, Colonel General Vladimir Mikhailov, "has the chance to improve the situation, to current the current state of affairs," the ex-commander said.
"An economy of no large industrial country is capable of creating an air defense missile shield along borders totaling over 60,000km in length," he said.
"We can only create zonal air defense from S-300 and other missile systems and cover several vital military industrial installations. In the future we have nothing else to do on such great territory by to maneuver aviation groupings," Deinekin stressed.
The expert stressed that the Air Force must always reserve the opportunity to maneuver like a pendulum from the Western theater to the Far Eastern one and back wherever the need arises.
Deinekin headed the Air Force from 1991 to 1998.