Russian business should be prepared to switch to production to military needs at any time, said Vladimir Putin on Thursday, The Independent reported. The Russian President was speaking at a conference of military leaders in Sochi. “The ability of our economy to increase military production and services at a given time is one of the most important aspects of military security,” he said. “To this end, all strategic, and simply large-scale enterprise should be ready, regardless of ownership,” Putin said. A day earlier, the President had spoken of a need to catch up and overtake the West in military technology.
“Our army and navy need to have the very best equipment — better than foreign equivalents. If we want to win, we have to be better,” he said. Since the 2008 Georgian war, which was a difficult operation, the Russian military has undergone extensive modernisation. Ageing Soviet equipment has gone. There is a new testing regime. There are new command structures. The budget has also increased exponentially. The budget has also increased exponentially.
