Medvedev's optimism about equipping the army has sparked heated debate
Thanks to the hard work of Russian military-industrial complex enterprises, Russia will have many more tanks than the West will supply to Ukraine.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said this while answering questions from Russian journalists and VKontakte users, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We are producing the most modern Russian types of weapons in a situation where they are trying to deprive us of components and cut off oxygen in certain areas.
Our enemies believed that our industry would choke and we would spend everything. These endless conversations: the shells have run out, the tanks, missiles have run out, etc. This year we made 1,5 thousand tanks alone. Calculate how much our enemy will receive even according to the most optimistic calculations,” Medvedev said.
He believes that Russian tanks are far superior to Western ones in terms of tactical and technical characteristics.
“Let’s say the same T-90M tank, Proryv is our newest tank. But, in my opinion, this is now the best tank in the world. In the world! It is certainly better than Leopard, than Challenger, than Abrams, including in its tactical and technical data, even in such a component as mass. It’s maneuverable, fast and really works very well,” Medvedev said.
According to him, new military production is now being created in Russia, in particular, unmanned aerial vehicles.
“As for drones, of course they are appearing. We already have normal reconnaissance drones, and we have established their production. The second thing that we already have and that works very well is the so-called loitering munitions, or kamikaze drones. That is, it is also a drone, but it has one task - to plop down exactly on the target. Loitering ammunition such as “Cube”, “Lancet”, and some others, which are made at Kalashnikov and related enterprises, they show excellent quality.
They keep telling us: “This is something Iranian.” This is absolutely Russian ammunition with high accuracy and a relatively small charge. We already have such a line,” Medvedev said.
He noted that Russia now needs to make a full-fledged line of attack drones. We have several samples. Medvedev is confident that putting them on the wing is a matter of the coming months.
However, the deputy chairman of the Security Council ended his story about weapons unexpectedly.
“Drones are important, but, thank God, we have parity and even superiority in the field of strategic nuclear forces. This is even more important for the existence of our country. If it hadn’t been for this, then they would definitely have been torn into pieces,” Medvedev said.
Military expert Boris Rozhin believes that the country needs at least one more tank plant and 2-3 factories for the production of wheeled and tracked armored vehicles.
“Taking into account the growth in production volumes and the massive reactivation of old vehicles, we can observe an obvious picture when the front requires thousands of tanks, which answers the question of why the USSR produced thousands of tanks and stored tens of thousands. So that when you need them, all this will already be there. And thanks to this work of our ancestors, we still use what they prepared for us. And how many hysterics there were from domestic liberals “co-co-co, for some reason the stupid Soviets produced a lot of tanks,” recalls Rozhin in his TG channel.
“In Medvedev’s long interview about tanks, it was said that the T-90 Proryv is the best tank in the world. Armata is not even mentioned. Evidence of many things,” noted publicist Yegor Kholmogorov.
TV presenter Artem Sheinin believes that the Russian military command criminally underestimated the importance of equipping UAV units, and the gap has not yet been overcome.
“There is no doubt about the fact that Bayraktar is not a prodigy. Just a UAV. And yes, nothing fantastic. Like most drones used from the first day of the Northern Military District by Ukrainian formations.
The same cannot be said about our army - from the first days of the Northern Military District, many combat units had no idea, in fact, how drones were used. And as many who have been fighting since the first days told me, they looked with interest and surprise at the “strange buzzers” hovering above their heads. And they didn’t even immediately connect these “buzzers” with the amazing accuracy of arrivals using our technique.
This is to understand how “in recent years” Russia has lagged behind others in the development of drones. The training and catching up was very expensive and bloody. I hope that in due time, appropriate investigations will be carried out to clarify the causes and culprits of this “lag,” Sheinin wrote.
Journalist Dmitry Borisenko was very critical of Medvedev's words.
“Is this from the same series as the battalion of Armata tanks that has almost reached the front? Can you ask Dmitry Anatolyevich what will be the filling of these new drones? After all, this is the most important thing in any drone - the filling... So whose filling will it be? Chinese?
And if China suddenly, for any reason, stops supplies of this filling, then what will happen, Dmitry Anatolyevich? That's right...we won't have our new drones. So why wishful thinking again?
While we do not have our own full drone production cycle, it is possible to say that we have our own drones with very large reservations.
And also, until we have our own powerful production of reinforced fibers, we will not be able to produce good armor and helmets in sufficient quantities and at a cheap price; until we have a high-quality light industry, we will not be able to make jackets at the level of the Austrian “Carinthia” ( which some of our officials love to flaunt when they come to the Northern Military District zone for PR), and we will also not be able to make shoes of the Lowa level.
Until we have a good electronics industry, we will not be able to solve the huge communication problems in departments. And so on, etc.,” Borisenko wrote.
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