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Before the meeting, the President inspected upgraded production floors and met with workers of the Kalashnikov Concern.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

We are holding a regular meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission at the famous Kalashnikov Concern in Izhevsk.

Armourers’ Day was celebrated here as well as in other regions of the country shortly before. I have just spoken with workers on the production floor, and I’d like to congratulate you and all of our colleagues on your professional holiday and thank all of you for your painstaking labour and impressive results. We are proud of the achievements of the designers, engineers and workers of the defence industry, and I would like to wish success, health and wellbeing to all those who are involved with it.

Today we will review a number of issues related to the main areas in the system of arms development, primarily the modernisation of intelligence and information complexes that are playing a most important, decisive role in modern combat.

Today the formation of an integrated information and intelligence space of the Armed Forces is one of our key tasks. It should be based on protected modern technology and cover all levels of command – from tactical control to the general staff.

I would like to note that a number of steps towards creating this system have already been taken under the 2011–2020 state arms procurement programme, such as the formation of information support for long-range precision weapons. Also, our defence industry has launched the serial production and supply of troops with modern arms systems that will be used in the integrated information and intelligence space.

A trial link of the systems of automated control of intelligence and communications, as well as information support and other types of support for high-precision weapons of all types of deployment was carried out in two strategic areas.

Information support for advanced long-range weapons has been tested. It is necessary to step up this work, and strictly abide by the schedule on the development, trials and production of all planned systems.

I would like to emphasise that defence industry organisations should fully comply with the requirements of state customers on advanced military hardware, which are based on the combat experience of troops.

The next issue on the agenda is the timely implementation of the state armament programme. I would like to recall that in 2015 it was 97 percent complete. It was a good result made possible by our efforts to put funding in order and eliminate obstacles that used to slow work down or even prevent us from achieving our targets.

Still, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved. We discussed them at the meetings in Sochi in May, at the Defence Ministry, and on the unified military goods commissioning day. Today I would like to hear your suggestions as to how the issues can be settled.

Finally, I would like to stress that the success of state armament programme, the successful design of future weaponry and the innovative development of the defence industrial complex all hinge on fundamental research aimed at boosting our defences. In this context, the Russian Academy of Science came forward with a proposal to involve its specialised institutes more often and in a greater capacity.

The commission’s technological and scientific council has been instructed to analyse their potential, and I suggest that today we discuss what conclusions they have drawn and what can be done in this regard.

Let’s get to work. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin will speak next.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin: Mr President, colleagues,

In accordance with your Executive Order of July 20, 2016, the Military-Industrial Commission Board began implementing the second stage of military science reform. After the institution of general designers for complex weapon systems was established, we worked in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence, the Minister of Industry and Trade, the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, the Rosatom State Nuclear Power Corporation and other defence contractors to draw up a list of priority R&D areas. We have discussed it and can now submit it to you, Mr President, so that you can grant powers to the heads of these priority areas.

At this stage, we believe it to be necessary to focus our efforts on major issues that are essential for a new technological paradigm and the design of cutting-edge weaponry.

Moreover, new technology will have a powerful non-military effect as part of the programme that you tasked the Military-Industrial Commission with developing – a programme to diversify the defence industry to produce high-tech equipment for civil use.

I must say that the areas that the Board singled out for research can produce dual civil and military technology. The areas are enumerated in the Russian Government resolution that was issued prior to our meeting. Let me cite a few.

First of all, we are talking about technologies related to the materials science and engineering. Then, there are the technologies from the fields of radioelectronics, engine building, optronics, photonics, high-performance computing, including supercomputing. We will also develop technologies required to produce special fissile materials for the nuclear weapons complex and high-speed air and water equipment. Other areas of interest include cyber technology, propulsion technology, rocket engine technology and, finally, information and telecommunication technologies.

We will continue coordinating other strategic issues and we do not rule out submitting an additional proposal at one of the meetings of the Military-Industrial Commission.

As is clear from the presentation that goes with my speech, the development of new technology involves, in turn, resolving a broad range of additional tasks.

Thus, the structure of optronics and photonics includes the hardware components of photoelectronics, laser emitters, radio-photonics, optical materials, active media and light-sensitive materials and finally devices for transferring optical data.

This is exactly why the head of a priority technological area will be in charge, as a systems integrator, of not only a relevant main research organisation, but also the council of chief industrial engineers, to organise work on technological subsystems and the scientific and technical council for the relevant follow-up on the development of a certain technology. I would like to emphasise once again that we are talking about forming a system of institutions that answer to very different departments so that the work is coordinated.

In accordance with your executive order, general industrial engineers will be included on the Scientific and Technical Council of the Military-Industrial Commission where they will closely cooperate with general designers of special combat hardware.

In this way, we are forming a system of research and production organisations that will be able to generate entirely new knowledge and technology and also to initiate the formation and development of new scientific schools.

Now allow me to turn to the closed part of my speech and present to you the nominees for the heads of priority spheres of military technology.

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