Serbian Defense Minister announced the country's need for a sharp increase in military production
The new Minister of Defense of Serbia, Nebojsa Stefanovic, believes that the country's military non-aligned neutrality can only be achieved with a modern and strong army.
The head of the defense department told the Odbrana magazine about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Only a strong army and a strong state can be militarily neutral,” Stefanovic said. “Our job is to support Serbia’s strategic commitment to remain neutral, to be self-reliant, to be a sovereign and independent state that makes its own decisions, with its own army, combat-ready enough to be a guarantor of the security of its citizens.”
To know that the Serbian Army can accomplish any task assigned to it and be a bulwark against all threats to the country’s security, from, say, classic military threats to modern cyber threats.”
The Minister of Defense set the department the goal of improving the equipment of the military, as well as increasing their salaries.
“In addition to modernizing funds, one of the primary tasks that we certainly want to accomplish in the coming period is to improve the standard of living of the military,” said the Minister of Defense. “I talked with the president that in addition to the five percent increase in salaries that the state has already planned, we have a significant increase that will affect the level of soldiers and sergeants, less so for officers.
We must work to improve living standards to encourage people to join and stay in the military. An important segment is the purchase of new uniforms, shoes and equipment, everything that is important for every soldier, and, of course, equipping our special forces.”
Nebojsa Stefanovic noted that under his predecessor, Aleksandar Vulin, there was a revival of the Serbian military-industrial complex, however, in order to meet the needs of the army, the defense industry must work more intensively.
“I saw that a lot was invested in the previous period. But we need to start these cycles even stronger. We are convinced that the domestic industry, focused on its own forces, corresponds to the strategic vision of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense in terms of equipping the army.
However, it is necessary to speed up the processes. I believe that we need to produce more of the weapons needed by the military faster, and we cannot afford to produce only a few models per year.
It is important for us that domestic industry can receive funds and that we can purchase everything that is needed for the army in our country and not depend on foreign countries,” added the Serbian Minister of Defense.
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