Terrorist war is the major threat for Russia. This is what the participants in the Roundtable on Russia's armament arrived at in Moscow, lately.
Thus, Sergey Grinyaev, Director General at the Center of Strategic Assessment and Forecasts, is sure that to counteract the terrorist, war Russia needs premium infantry rather than tanks and rockets. "Meanwhile, we have produced insufficient amount of infantry, if produced, over the last years," the expert said.
Vice President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems Konstantin Sivkov shares Grinyaev's views. He claims that the Russian air fleet is at the level of mid-80s and only 10% of the total fleet is up-to-date military equipment. The military hardware of Russia's land-based troops consists of the models of late 80s.
In addition, Russia has several dozens of analogues of the 5000 "tomahawks" of the U.S. army. The overall percentage of the up-to-date arms in Russia's Armed Forces is much lower than the known 26%, Sivkov claimed.
In this light, Alexander Sharavin, Director at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis is sure that the modest military budget of the last 20 years simply obliges the country to increase military costs. "Generally, 20 trillion is earmarked for re-equipment of the armed forces. In 2014 we are going to increase the percentage of sophisticated arms to 26% and to 70% by 2020. This is a hard task that will strain economy," Sharavin said.