Defence minister says Russia can be reliable partner for NATO
ITAR-TASS
Munich, 3 February, Speaking at a news conference at the end of the 38th
international conference on security policy, Russian Defence Minister
Sergey Ivanov expressed his disagreement with statements according to
which Russia could not be a reliable partner for NATO because of the
difficult financial state of its armed forces. Admitting that the
Russian armed forces experience a shortage of funds, he noted that such
problems are also relevant to Western countries.
Within the Russian armed forces, the minister noted, there are
combat-ready well-equipped and professional special sub-units which "are
of great interest for our partners, and they ask us about this for a
reason". He noted that Russia had already taken a decision to change
over to a professional army, "and no-one is disputing the necessity of
this step". For the next year the Defence Ministry must submit the
concept document of this transition. Ivanov admitted that this step
would need an allocation of financial means "of a very large scale -
hundreds of billions of roubles". Nevertheless, Russia intends to take
this path, he stressed, and to do this without rushing or dragging out
the process, recalling that in the USA the transition to a new system of
call-up took 10 years.
However, the reform of the armed forces will not be limited to a
professional army, Ivanov said. "It has already been decided to deploy
new high-precision weapon systems that are necessary to counteract and
fight modern threats and challenges," Sergey Ivanov said.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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