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Untitled Document Concluding remarks at a meeting with the leading personnel of the Russian Armed Forces (excerpted) President Vladimir Putin
The Kremlin October 2, 2003
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I want to point out that so far the move to a programme method of planning military structuring is being delayed. At the same time, without this, military planning risks remaining expensive and of low effectiveness. The main foundation of national security in Russia remains, and will remain for a long time to come, nuclear deterrence forces. They are in a very good state, there are plans to develop them, and these plans are realised. I can inform you what the Minister of Defence, the head of General Staff and the commander of the strategic rocket troops know well. There is no state secret here – Russia has a significant supply of ground-based strategic rockets. These are the most impressive rockets – the UR-100 NUTTH (SS-19). This is a very serious potential, several dozen rockets. Anatoly Kvashin, how much is this in military blocs?
Anatoly Kvashin: Several hundred nuclear shells…
President Vladimir Putin:
Good. These rockets have not been on military duty for a single day, they have been kept “dry”, and though these were not created yesterday or today, in a certain sense they are new rockets, and the time frame of their possible use is very significant. But their military capabilities, including in overcoming any systems of anti-rocket defence, are outside competition.
Russia has kept to, and will continue to fulfill, its international obligations in restricting the international nuclear potential. At the same time, the treaty which I just mentioned, allows the parties that have signed the treaty to keep a significant potential in their stockpile. Russia makes use of the regulations of this treaty in full measure. The heavy rockets at our disposal will be put on military duty as the expiry date runs out for those rockets which are on military duty today.
Thus, we have enough time to work on the creation of new models of weaponry of the 21stc century, gradually, without any jumps, but persistently and systematically. I would like to note that Russia has a serious reserve in this area. I will strictly control the fulfillment of all these plans, and make arrangements for modernization based on our interests and the current situation in the world. We will work with all our state partners, including in very sensitive areas, such as creating systems of anti-rocket defence. I talked about principles of organizing this work in detail at a meeting with the President of the United States of America in Camp David several days ago.
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