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The President looked over the main facilities at the Centre, which began operation on December 1 and makes it possible for the Security Council, Armed Forces General Staff and the heads of the federal executive agencies to work simultaneously.

The National Defence Control Centre makes it possible for the Security Council, Armed Forces General Staff, and the heads of the federal executive authorities to work simultaneously.

Mr Putin visited the control and coordination, combat control, and daily operations control centres, which monitor combat readiness operations and implementation of defence procurement contracts, analyse the financial and material provisions and the personnel situation in the armed forces, and ensure information exchange with the federal authorities.

The President held a meeting at the Centre on standards and procedures for commissioning goods produced by the defence industry and reviewed the defence procurement programme’s results for 2014.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

Today is the latest of our common days for formal commissioning of defence industry goods. This management tool has become part of our standard practice over this year and enables us to make a quarterly inspection of the new equipment the armed forces are receiving. This makes it easier for the defence industry and the Defence Ministry to plan and organise their work in smooth fashion. 

During the videoconference, we will review the defence procurement programme’s results for the fourth quarter and indeed for 2014 as a whole. At the same time, we will assess how ready the units are for putting the new equipment into operation.

We noted during the recent meetings in Sochi that nearly all of the defence procurement plans this year have been fulfilled and the overall volume has increased nearly 1.5-fold compared to 2013. In fact, in some areas, the state defence procurement programme even exceeded its initial targets.

The armed forces received more than 4,500 new model arms, military and special equipment in 2014, including 142 planes, 135 helicopters, four submarines, 15 surface ships, 19 air defence systems, and 590 tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

As part of our work to strengthen Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, 3 regiments equipped with Yars missile systems have come on combat duty, and 7 Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers have been modernised for the Air Force.

Let me say again that we have struck a good pace in our work and have settled practically all the main issues, including pricing, delivery deadlines, and organisation of formal commissioning of the new equipment.

We must continue to carry out all of our state defence procurement plans next year. This way, we will reach our targets for providing our Armed Forces with the modern arms and equipment they need. Let me remind you that the share of modern arms and equipment should account for 30–60 percent of the total in the different branches of the Armed Forces by the end of 2015.

Russia’s own defence industry must be able to produce the full range of modern arms. We have already made the needed decisions in this area and have drafted plans for import substitution.

Let me make it clear that we must end the critical dependence on imported technology, parts and components. I am sure that you all realise how important it is for us to find effective solutions here. It is not enough to simply place orders with our companies and design bureaus. We need to organise things in such a way that what we produce is even better than the foreign equivalents. Let me add that this demand for the highest possible quality applies to all work on the state defence procurement programme.

Finally, the Defence Ministry has been carrying out construction programmes across the entire country this year, building more than 4,000 military sites. A total of 1,300 military infrastructure sites have been brought into operation this year. This is three times more than last year.

The number of sites where construction remains uncompleted has dropped this year. Facilities worth a value of more than 134 billion rubles began operation in 2014. We need to make sure this trend continues in 2015.

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