Vladimir Putin says all big Russian businesses should be ready for war production (Source independent.co.uk)

Russian business should be prepared to switch to production to military needs at any time, said Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The Russian president was speaking at a conference of military leaders in Sochi.

“The ability of our economy to increase military production and services at a given time is one of the most important aspects of military security,” Mr Putin said. “To this end, all strategic, and simply large-scale enterprise should be ready, regardless of ownership.” A day earlier, the president had spoken of a need to catch up and overtake the West in military technology. “Our army and navy need to have the very best equipment — better than foreign equivalents,” he said. “If we want to win, we have to be better.”

Since the 2008 Georgian war, which was a difficult operation, the Russian military has undergone extensive modernization. Ageing Soviet equipment has gone. There is a new testing regime. There are new command structures. The budget has also increased exponentially.

 

 

Russia blasts Trump for putting North Korea on terror list (Source nypost.com) Russia blasted the Trump administration’s decision to include North Korea on a list of states sponsoring terrorism as a “PR move” that could result in a global “catastrophe,” according to a report on Thursday.

“The answer to the question whether such actions help in lessening the tensions is clear: no, they do not,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, Agence France-Press reported.

She said the “scaremongering act and PR move” would do nothing to reduce the tension on the peninsula as President Kim Jong Un’s regime continues to develop its missile and nuclear weapons. “These sorts of actions push the situation to the extreme. This can end with a big catastrophe not only of a regional but also of global scale,” Zakharova told reporters in Moscow.

She said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the rogue regime with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono when he visits Russia on Friday, the wire service reported.

“They will concentrate on bilateral relations but the international situation will be discussed, including the situation in the Korean peninsula as well as the Syrian question,” Zakharova said. Trump on Tuesday announced that he was adding North Korea to the list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that triggered another round of sanctions “to isolate the murderous regime.”

 

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