State program on developing defense industry not implemented

The program on developing Russia's defense industry through 2010 practically is not implemented, Yury Solomonov, the General Director of the federal state enterprise Moscow Institute of Thermotechnics (a leading enterprise in developing strategic nuclear weapons), declared at a meeting of the heads of Russian defense enterprises today. According to him, decrees of the President and the government aimed at developing and supporting the defense industry are not implemented in full volume. "Russia's defense industry is in deep crisis", he said. Solomonov is confident that there is no state system of managing the defense industry.

On the whole, there are about 1,553 defense enterprises in Russia. Some 38 percent of them are scientific organizations, and 58 percent are manufacturing enterprises. The share of defense enterprises in the industrial production is 12.5 percent. Some 80 percent of production facilities of defense enterprises are old.