The British Ministry of Defense has assured that the Russian armed forces are using obsolete projectiles that had been classified as unusable before the war with Ukraine. Moscow faces a great shortage of ammunition to face the Ukrainian troops in the east of the country. Ukraine also believes that the fact that Russia has reduced the rate of air strikes from two weeks to a month or more is precisely due to the shortage of missiles in its arsenal. This is information that cannot be verified, but many Western analysts believe that this data is solid and responds to the high consumption of arms and ammunition in a war that was raised from Moscow as a quick “special military operation”. Another piece of information that points in the same direction is the one provided by the head of the Wagner’s mercenary groupYevgeny Prigozhin, who repeatedly criticized the Kremlin and demanded more arms supplies for the Bakhmut battle.
In the last few hours, however, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, has given the order to Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation to double the production of high-precision missiles. The general pointed out that the KTRV arms company correctly complies with the state defense requests that are made to it, but urged to increase the production of high-precision weapons for this year: “It is necessary to double its production now”, is the slogan launched by the military high command.
The general verified the progress of state defense contracts at the corporation, where the management showed him the technological process and the production lines in which high-precision missiles are assembled, as well as the latest weapons that have begun to be produced serially. Shoigu added that KTRV is now engaged in serial production of some of the latest weapons, that currently “does not have the enemy of today nor the Armed Forces of other countries”.
Tactical missile weapons “are a very serious task,” he stressed, adding that for their manufacture the corporation has the necessary resources such as highly-skilled specialists and production capabilities. Therefore, the minister emphasized, “the task is difficult, but satisfying”said the minister.
Already earlier this month he pointed out that Russia is unable to mass-produce high-tech systems mainly due to international sanctions. London made this remark on the same day that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree that allows it to suspend shareholder rights and take over external management of companies that do not comply with state defense contracts in case martial law is introduced on Russian territory. Martial law was decreed on October 19, 2022 in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson annexed by Russia last September.
The Russian defense industry is increasingly embracing a command economy. According to British intelligence, top Russian commanders have recognized that the industry is a crucial weak point in the “increasingly grueling” war with Ukraine.
Discussion about this post