MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax-AVN) - Degrading quality of defense industry products is becoming a national threat, which start to directly affect the national security.
"As compared with 1991 at the present time the number of complaints per defense industry product has increased almost ten- fold. In 2000-2002 the Russian Armed Forces suffered 11 accidents, involving various materiel from missile systems up to aircraft, due to production defects. It is regrettable that the product quality is low even when the national defense industry fulfils export contracts of high interest to manufacturers. In 2002 foreign customers submitted 622 complaints to Russian manufacturers, and 861 complaints in 2003. In excess of 500 complaints, submitted in 2003, are yet to be satisfied," Major General Vladimir Muravnik, Deputy Director of the Federal Defense Order Service, said in the interview with the Independent Military Review newspaper, published on Friday.
According to him, the defense industry has made a number of considerable deviations from the armament and materiel design and production procedure when delivering Project 11356 ships to a foreign state. "When the flagship was handed over to the foreign customer in 2002, 100% of Stilet missiles launches were unsuccessful to say the least. Anti-ship missiles exported had been manufactured in compliance with the design documentation, which failed to meet a number of requirements, listed in specification requirements. As a result, up to 50% of the missiles were rendered out of order in the course of operation," Muravnik said.
"The analysis of 2001-2003 shows that the funds, earmarked for procuring major armament systems and materiel, total only 10- 15% of all assets allocated. They are sufficient to procure just 50-60 systems. Only 100 of over 3,500 research and development projects are completed every year. At the same time about 200-300 new projects are started. The armament development program is lagging behind considerably. Thus, the Russian Armed Forces cannot be equipped with new weapon systems on time," he said.