Russian Navy to use NATO warships in distant future?

Russian warships will be equipped with foreign arms soon. Admiral Vysotky, the commander of the Russian navy, considers an opportunity to install artillery systems of foreign production on board Russian frigates, or anti-boat vessels.

According to Vysotsky, it goes about the French-made 100-millimeter Creusot-Loire Compact artillery system and the Italian 127-millimeter OTO-Melara 127/64LW. Moreover, the admiral said that Russian vessels could be equipped with diesel engines and air conditioning systems - all made outside Russia.

The surprising statement from the admiral coincided with the testing of Russian state-of-the-art anti-boat guns, particularly A-192M Armat artillery system. The tests were supposed to end in 2012. Needless to say that the performance of Russian systems is not worse than that of foreign complexes.

Nikolai Novichkov, chief editor of ARMS-TASS news agency, told Pravda.Ru that Russia had started paying more attention to foreign defense technologies during the recent years.

"At first they said that they would be willing to purchase unmanned aircraft from Israel. Then they said that Russia could launch the production of Italian armored vehicles. Some time later, they announced the intention to purchase Mistral helicopter carriers from France. It seems that the military have every reason to believe that the Russian defense industry has lost the technologies for making high-quality arms. The situation in the national military and industrial complex has been aggravating steadily for years already," the expert said.

Viktor Litovkin, editor of Independent Military Review newspaper:

"One of the reasons that made Vysotsky think about an opportunity to purchase artillery systems of foreign production is the fact that Russia is hardly capable of making them herself. As far as I can remember, the last time, when Russia was producing them for the navy, was more than ten years ago."

"The quality of Russian defense products has been decreasing for years. Nothing has been modernized in the defense industry of the Russian Federation for 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The nation's military and industrial complex has been dying slowly but surely.

"I do not see any tragedy in new initiatives. If we continue looking at the world through the glasses of the USSR, then this should be considered a catastrophe, of course. However, many countries of the world have been developing defense cooperation very actively recently. It's not a shame for, let's say, Britain, to purchase arms from the USA," the expert said.

Konstantin Sivkov, first vice president of the Academy for Geopolitical Sciences:

"When we are being told that purchasing arms from abroad does not bring anything negative for the country, this is just a slim excuse. If NATO countries buy something from each other, it's ok for them, because they share common interests. We can not say the same about Russia, because NATO is Russia's potential enemy.

"Russian artillery systems, both 100-mm and 130-mm ones, technically outstrip their Western analogues by 30 percent. It is not serious when someone says that the Russian defense complex is incapable of making high-quality arms. China and India, who purchased Russian weapons before and continue to purchase them still, never set any quality claims to us. If Russia continues to buy arms from other countries, the national defense system will collapse entirely. I think that the Office of the Prosecutor General should look into the matter in detail. If we purchase artillery systems for our ships now and then continue with purchasing engines for them, we will bury our ship-building industry. This will trigger losses in other industries of the complex, which will eventually strike an irreparable blow on the defensive capacity of the country."

Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.Ru

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