OMSK. Jan 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry is concerned about the lack of modern armaments in the Armed Forces, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting with Siberian officials in Omsk on Thursday.
"The quantity of modern conventional armaments and material is absolutely insufficient," Ivanov said.
The technical provision and rearmament of the Armed Forces remain serious problems, "which have resulted to a large extent from some negative tendencies of the past decade," Ivanov noted.
"The belief that the situation in the Armed Forces will immediately improve if they obtain money and new materiel is a great and dangerous illusion," the minister said.
"The money shortage is far from being the only problem in the development of the Armed Forces, this is not even the main problem. It is not enough to have new material and money for exercises, flights and things like that. One has to use the new material wisely, and this can only be done by psychologically overcoming the transitional period, when survival at any cost, even at the expense of losing the readiness and ability for combat, is vital. This is now impermissible," Ivanov said.
"We can only talk about a step-by-step rearmament of the Land Forces and the Navy if we realistically estimate the government's capacity for financing the Defense Ministry in the RU EUROPE EEU EMRG AER]