Dmitry Rogozin: We cannot allow cuts in state program for rearmaments

In an interview with TASS Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that Western countries should be thanked for Russia's energetic relations with China

Russian Deputy Prime Minister, the chairman of the Board for the Military-Industrial Complex, Dmitry Rogozin keeps construction of the Vostochny space center in the country’s Far East under personal control and he promises to have meetings with the co-chairman of the Russian-Chinese interstate commission not only at sessions of the latter. Rogozin spoke in an interview with TASS about complaints against the builders of the space center, new Russian-Chinese projects in aviation and space research, a new state armament program through to 2025 and talks with the US on building stations of the Russian global positioning system GLONASS in the US.

- A prosecutorial inquiry into the spending of budgetary funds for construction of the Vostochny space center and the causes for disruption of the schedule of works was ordered recently. What are the new terms for commissioning of the key facilities of the complex and has the problem with the schedule been eliminated?

- What you said contains two different questions. Number one, slipping behind schedule and how to eliminate it. This isn’t just a matter of the prosecutorial inspection. That’s a problem of a frugal treatment of spending, which concerns the customer of the project, the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) to a much greater degree. Problem number two concerns elimination of leaning towards the possible encroachments on legitimacy that may occur and, on top of that, the ones that have occurred in the past.

When I came to Vostochny for the first time, we were about twelve months behind the schedule because the project documentation was haywire and in some cases it just didn’t exist at all. Along with it, everyone mentioned the uniqueness of some installations, saying it was simply impossible to draft project documentation for them. This is the biggest loophole for corruption schemes.

One more problem that had brought about the slippage was the technologically incorrect computation of the time of completion of launch pad No. 1. The computation suggested that the construction teams were to round up their work in November 2015 and its commissioning for operations was to take place in December. But this is simply impossible because six months as a minimum is needed for testing all the equipment. And to be able to test it, you should bring it to the site, assemble it and get it ready for the first rocket launch. That’s why I demanded back in the summer of 2012 that completion of construction works be brought forward. I asked to finish them in June of July 2015 instead of November 2015. The fact also contributed to the slippage in some way but we were not falling behind time in this case, we were returning to the logic of the Presidential Decree on the launch of an unmanned ship from the Vostochny space center’s launch pad No. 1.

- And what are the main grudges against the builders?

- The main grudge is that, from our viewpoint, they are short of workforce to ensure the commissioning of all the phase-one facilities as scheduled. No doubt, we won’t agree with their smart tricks, with their proposals to establish the so-called ‘launch minimum’, which means to concentrate efforts on the facilities that are critical to the launch of the rocket, and to put the rest on a shelf. On our part, we believe everything included in the plan should be implemented in full.

- You visited Vostochny with a yet another inspection ten days ago? How big is the gap now?

- The most important task today is to begin supply of heating to all technological rooms on time so that we could unpack and assemble the equipment there. It’s important to keep up the pace of work in wintertime, too, to build up the volumes of output, and to bring the main works to the final phase by June.

As for the slippage, it remains practically unchanged – about one and a half months from one installation to another. I’m afraid I’ll have to go there quite often because big-shot visits always stimulate the progress of works. I plan to go there next time after November 20 and then closer to the New Year. That is, I’ll make trips to Vostochny practically every month and I’ll see to it that all construction works are normalized.

- What other measures are being taken to impart the necessary pace to construction works?

- To ensure that all of this is translated into life and works harmoniously, I took a decision to relocate there the main forces and knowledgeable people who have taken part in building large facilities of this kind in the past.
In the first place, we’re considering a full-scale inclusion of the Ministry of Construction Industry in the project. I’ve proposed to appoint Deputy Minister Leonid Stavitsky the principal official in charge of the Vostochny project on behalf of the ministry.

A working group is being formed now to take control of all the technical documentation, the work of the department for state appraisals (Glavgosexpertiza), and the computation of all the coefficients, including the ones applied at unique installations. In other words, struggle with paper tigers should be over within two or three months. It’s important to put the builders’ work on a routine, normal track. They will be controlled by the Ministry of Construction Industry at the instruction of the Russian government.

- The situation with the builders is clear but what are the claims against Roscosmos?

- If you take Roscosmos, the claims against them are not fewer or even outweigh those against the builders. They concern the work of the directorate-general of the space center. I think an immediate reshuffle is necessary there along with the upgrading of its status and its competences so that the customer could control the works done by the general contractor.

I’ll make trips to Vostochny practically every months and I’ll see to it that all the construction works there are normalized.

On the whole, we realize the complexity of this work. The Vostochny space center is being built in a region that is short of construction equipment because it’s located in the taiga, quite far away from population centers, and workforce is also scanty there. We realize this but the fact does not annul in any way the task set forth by the President.

- Will extra funds be allocated to speed the works up?

- No, we won’t go beyond the allocations that have been earmarked. It’s all in the budget already and we haven’t had any contradictions with the Finance Ministry so far.

- What’s the situation with the launch pad for the Angara rockets?

- That’s one more crucial task. All the documentation for works at launch pad No. 2, that is for Angara, must be drawn up briskly.

Besides, we’ll have to build an airdrome at Vostochny and a city with permanent housing instead of the service one, to ramify the infrastructure, and to put the technological compound in place.

In fact, construction of the Vostochny space center will continue further on and there’ll be a third phase aimed at a super-heavy-duty rocket, which the designers are still pondering. That’s a story to take a long, long time. The main thing now is to keep up fair pace and to ensure the launch of a space ship with the Lomonosov satellite from the Far East in December 2015.

- Is sequestering of the State Program for Armaments through to 2020, for which 20 trillion rubles has been earmarked, possible now?

- Considering the situation in the world, we can’t allow any sort of cuts in the armaments program now. President Putin stated this unambiguously on many occasions, and quite naturally numerous consultations have been held on the issue. That means that if we reschedule separate things beyond 2020, this will be done only due to the inability of the manufacturing sector to accomplish one or another task.

Considering the situation in the world, we can’t allow any sort of cuts in the armaments program now.

And can there be cuts in the new program for the years 2016 through to 2025?

- We plan to hold the next session of the commission for defense manufacturing either at the beginning of next year or at the end of this year, with President Putin attending it. The session will consider financial and economic background, against which the new program will be drafted. At present, the Finance Ministry and Economic Development Ministry are expected to produce a maximally realistic forecast for the country’s economic development.

Proceeding from it and from the benchmarks it stipulates, we’ll be able to figure out the minimum possible volume of financing of the future program of armaments. But it will be comparable with financing of the current program anyway.

- How is the import independence program for our defense industry sector developing? What’s the amount of work and what are the time limits?

- The first stage of the import substitution plan has been adopted by the president, approved, and funds have been allocated for it, including for the current year. These measures are already taken on some facilities. I can’t name them to avoid attracting unnecessary attention. But in general, everything is proceeding according to plan.
The Defense Ministry as the key customer and the key interested party supervises the plan implementation. They compile reports on the plan weekly. So once in three months, the government receives information to what extent the plan is being implemented.

As regards the second stage, it is connected with the response to the sanctions announced by the West.

That is, substitution of US and European imports?

- Quite right. Everything has been calculated here too, all figures match one another. By the end of October, all this should be submitted to the government. The military industrial sector board staff will thoroughly analyze the data, reduce them to a common denominator, after which the matter will be reported to the president and approved.

- Has the cost of the program been calculated as well?

- Yes.

- Can you name the figure?

- No, I can’t.

- You head the Russian part of the bilateral intergovernmental commission with China on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation. How is it developing?

- We have rather energetic relations with the People’s Republic of China, and Western countries should be thanked a lot for that. I am not even joking, because in a certain sense it broke some psychological barriers, which probably existed in someone’s head regarding cooperation with China.

We are now actively working in the space sphere, considering possible joint projects in space exploration.
In November, a delegation of (Russian space agency) Roscosmos and leading rocket and space industry enterprises is heading to the International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, where they will discuss specific projects with representatives of the Chinese industry. Then they will report to the governments of their countries.

Through (Russian state nuclear energy corporation) Rosatom, we are actively discussing the issue of expanding Russian participation on the market of China’s electric power industry, up to entering jointly the markets of third countries on some separate projects.

Regarding satellite navigation – Russia’s GLONASS and China’s Beidou – we have also agreed. I suggested to our Chinese colleagues the idea to unite the efforts of two systems. They liked the idea. The Russian system is more northern, we mainly cover the Northern Hemisphere. The Chinese in this sense are southerners. 

Combination is possible here: technical cooperation both in the orbit and on Earth in creation of chipsets that could be receivers of both Beidou and GLONASS signals. This will give additional characteristics in terms of a clear and precise signal, so we will no longer depend on our connection with GPS.

- How does joint work with China proceed to build a wide-body long-range aircraft and a heavy helicopter? Will the helicopter be the development of our Mi-26 project?

- Yes, in the field of aviation we have considerably moved forward on the road to create a heavy 38-ton helicopter. 

But it will not even be a deep upgrade of Mi-26, but in essence the Russian Federation’s technological contribution to the creation of a new helicopter with large-scale Chinese financing for the project. We are also interested in the machine.

Regarding the wide-body long-range aircraft, the situation is also moving. Its design project has been completed. We are now calculating what China’s demand for these planes is, what our domestic demand is.

The key question is for how long will we certify it and where? It will either be Russian certification, that is by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), or China will certify it at its place. We suggested China join the IAC and thus remove the problem connected with certification of both this plane and other aircraft specimens. This issue is being studied.

So, we have progress in many spheres with China. We are working with the Chinese side very closely and have agreed that we will hold co-chair-level meetings more often than commission meetings. In the beginning of the year, I am going to visit China to specify work on these strategically important projects.

- Back in May, the Russian side declared some sort of an “ultimatum” to the United States on deployment of GPS earth stations on the territory of the Russian Federation. By August 31, the American partners were to make a decision on similar deployment of GLONASS earth stations on their territory. How are the talks proceeding?

- There are no talks there. We made a relevant statement in spring. I proposed initiating talks with the United States on deployment of GLONASS infrastructure on its territory, and suspend GPS stations’ infrastructure on Russian territory while talks are ongoing.

In conditions of sanctions, the Americans did not agree on any talks. So the issue is senseless from the viewpoint of prospects, that’s why we took measures. They suit us well. We deprived GPS stations in Russia by technical means of the opportunity to be used for military purposes.

- How exactly technically did Russian specialists deprive the Americans of the opportunity to use GPS stations on our territory for military purposes?

- For obvious reasons, I won’t tell you how we did it, but we did that.

We don’t want to frostbite our ears to annoy our granny but we don’t want to deprive our users of the opportunity to work with GLONASS and GPS either. Why should we create fewer opportunities for our own population? But we completely destroyed any prospects, even indirect ones, for the use of the American navigation system for homing of precision weapons.

How is preparation for the launch of the heavy Angara rocket from the Plesetsk space center going?

- According to reports by our military, Plesetsk has complete construction preparedness for the launch of Angara at the end of December. In line with the industry report, they also have complete preparedness of the rocket for the launch. There are no issues demanding interference of the Russian government. The matter is under the supervision of the Defense Ministry as the launching organization and the Khrunichev Center (Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center) as the manufacturer of the rocket.

- Will Angara be launched as planned – on December 25?

- Preliminarily, yes. But there is a weeklong window there. These are tests, so the launch will be made by technical readiness.

The interview was taken by Anastasiya Savinykh and Dmitry Reshetnikov

(TASS, Moscow)
 
Source: ITAR-TASS 31-10-2014

The Russians are coming! UK media hypes up RAF interception of Latvian plane

Two Royal Air Force jets reportedly threatened to shoot down a Latvian cargo plane, rushing at supersonic speeds to intercept it, after the plane failed to respond to air traffic control over Kent in Southern England and sent authorities into panic mode.

“I am instructed by Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom to warn you that, if you do not respond immediately to my orders, you will be shot down,” radioed one of the jets, according to an audio recording circulating in UK media.

The incident occurred at about 5pm local time after the Latvian Antonov An-26 aircraft failed to make contact with air traffic controllers.

British Typhoons were tasked with intercepting the cargo plane. “To fulfill their quick reaction role, they were cleared to travel at supersonic speed,” an RAF spokesperson said, adding that the speed explains the loud noise people heard in the air.

Many locals took to Twitter, describing how their houses shook after the loud bangs.
Communications with the civilian pilots were restored only after the jets intercepted the plane.

The Latvian plane was then escorted to London’s Stansted Airport at around 5:20 pm “All three people who were on board have been spoken to by police,” AP quoted Essex Police spokeswoman Emma Thomas as saying. “It was established that everything was in order and the reason for the short loss of communication was due to a change in airspace jurisdiction.”

Russian planes everywhere

The excitement surrounding the intercept – apparently based on post-9/11 terrorist attack fears – came amid a heightened terror alert in the UK at the time of the allied military campaign against the Islamic State.

Media reports mirrored the panic frenzy triggered by the incident, but in a peculiar way: first saying that the cargo plane was “Russian” and then switching to a “Russian-made” reference.

Both takes were wrong: the Antonov design bureau, the producer of An-26 planes, is a Ukrainian company founded in Soviet times, and the plane in question belonged to a Latvian-registered company, ironically called RAF-Avia.

However, the British media seemingly capitalized on the latest NATO reports of “unusual” increased activity of Russian military aircrafts over the Atlantic and the Black Sea.

NATO stated that it has intercepted four groups of Russian planes since Tuesday. “These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” the alliance said.

Most media reports based on the NATO statement failed to mention that the Russian planes did not cross any borders and remained within international airspace in every mentioned case.

Four Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers were spotted participating in a military exercise over the Norwegian Sea early on Wednesday. “We see Russian aircraft near our airspace on a regular basis but what was unusual is that it was a large number of aircraft and pushed further south than we normally see,” Reuters quoted a Norwegian military spokesman as saying.

In another incident on Wednesday, two Tu-95s were being monitored by Turkish aircraft over the Black Sea.

Source-Russia Today 30-10-2014

“They are playing tennis—three sets every match to try and kill us.”

Preamble: What follows is a first-hand account of events that took place in the area of the MH17 crash site in August of this year, written by someone who was part of the team of OSCE inspectors and observers. The Slavyangrad team was approached by this individual with a view to publishing their account as they believed that more mainstream news sources would either distort or censor the account. Accordingly, we have made only minor alterations to improve the English and to iron out typographical and/or grammatical errors (the author’s first language is not English). For obvious reasons (evident from the final paragraph of this account) we have substituted a pseudonym for the author’s real name.

Written by “Col. Tulip” / Edited by @GBabeuf & Olga Luzanova

On August 8, we received information that a farmer located in the most southern area of the crash site had reported that he had found materials which he believed had originated from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. According to the report, the farmer also believed that there might be human remains on his fields and he was asking for instructions on what to do. On Sunday, August 10, we attempted to reach the farmer. For this we had to cross from Ukrainian-held territory into rebel-held territory, crossing the no-man’s-land between the front lines. In reality, this basically means the space between the final road-blocks on the main roads.

At the last Ukrainian-manned road-block (manned by a volunteer unit wearing the insignia of the Azov Battalion), well within the twenty kilometre perimeter around the crash site, we were prohibited from continuing because there were ongoing military operations in the area ahead of us. In response to our questions about the operations, we were told “none of your business,” and “be glad we let you leave.” We decided to take a detour in order to try our luck at another road-block. At this road-block, in the hands of the regular army, we were simply waved through after having our papers checked. We asked if there were any military operations ongoing in the area ahead of us; the answer was “not that we know of—we have orders to hold our position and only to defend ourselves.”

Knowing that road-blocks are a regular target for both sides, we decided to move on quickly and see how far we would get. Our designated fixer told us that he expected another road-block ahead of us and a few kilometres along the road his suspicion was confirmed: an improvised road-block constructed from burned out cars and felled trees, manned by irregular troops. They seemed very excited, urging us “go back, go back, we are fighting!” One soldier with Azov badges and the black-red Right-Sector identification, seemingly the commander of this group, came over to our car and told us: “You have already been told that there is a military operation going on and that you are not allowed to proceed.” This made it clear to us that while irregular or volunteer units were communicating with each other, they were not communicating with the regular army unit holding the road-block we had previously passed through.

We took this man aside and reminded him of his government’s commitment to ensuring access to the crash site and to maintaining a twenty kilometre cease-fire zone around it. The reply was, to us, shocking: “I don’t take orders from Kiev,” and after this his tone became threatening. We decided to drive back to the army held road-block and ask around there. The commander at the army road-block said he did not know where the “amateurs” (as he referred to the irregulars) had their road-blocks or what they were doing. His exact statement was “I don’t know who gives them orders, we have no communication with them. My orders are to hold this position and to act only to defend ourselves, so that is what we do.” We asked him again if he knew about any ongoing military operation in the area we were attempting to visit, and his reply was very straightforward: “Did your translator misunderstand something? We have orders to hold this position.” His annoyance seemed real—despite lacking any real insight into his actual orders, I believed he was telling the truth.

We decided to leave the area that was visible from the road-block and instead to try to find access by taking back-roads since our fixer was sure he would be able to find a way to bypass the road-blocks and get to the farmer who was awaiting us. Using back-roads and dirt tracks through fields, we were able to bypass the road-blocks of both sides, including those controlled by Ukrainian irregular forces.

Close to the village we met the farmer. While we were introducing ourselves we could hear artillery fire and explosions in the distance, which was a regular occurrence in this area despite the supposed commitment to a cease-fire around the crash site. The farmer, Gennady, explained to us what he had found and that he wanted to make sure he was not disturbing anything, but that he also needed to start preparing for harvesting his crop. When we approached the path into his fields I noticed two candles, some flowers and a cross. Gennady knelt down to take some dirt away and sat there for a moment. Our translator whispered, “he is praying.” When he got up, he said something which apparently touched our translator so much that she at first replied to Gennady in English, “tell him,” before continuing in Russian.

What Gennady had said was: “I thanked God you are here because they will not attack us now that you are.” What followed was a description, shocking to me, of regular artillery barrages against the villages and settlements in this area. Gennady told us that the villagers say “they are playing tennis, because they play three sets every match to try and kill us.” We had heard about people using the term ‘tennis’ for those actions before, but so far we had thought this meant watching the shells flying over like a tennis ball during a game. Evidently it was not; we were shocked by the cold description. Gennady pointed out some of the sites which he knew to have been hit—all farms, settlements and the two villages in the immediate vicinity. No military emplacements, no military objectives.

Gennady also told us that he had already lost some of his crop due to explosions in his fields. “This crop is all I have, my only income. I hope that I can sell what is still there because this is all my family lives from until the next crop is ready next summer.”

Suddenly we heard the distinctive sound of incoming shells. In the short time working inside the so-called cease-fire zone, our translator had already become used to these sounds and she realized immediately that it was coming in our direction. We dove to the ground for cover, and a little later the first shell exploded just on the other side of the path. Over the echo of the detonation we could hear many objects flying through the air and then felt them impact our protective gear. Seconds later, a second shell exploded near the road, closer to the village. A third shell exploded shortly after, on the other side of the road; we assumed this was either very close to or within the village. After this the barrage ended.

Staying under cover, we inspected the impact site closest to us. What we saw was the spent casing of cluster munitions. There is no doubt what the purpose if this shell was—to cause maximum damage to any human beings in the impact area.

Rushing to our car, taking Gennady with us, his words kept rushing through my head: “they are playing tennis, because they play three sets every match to try and kill us.” Once in the car, our immediate priority was to get away from there. Nobody said a word. After some minutes, Gennady asked us to drive to his mother’s place because he wanted to check whether she was okay or not. Then he said “you are bleeding.” We all checked ourselves. All of us had only minor injuries thanks to our protective equipment. That equipment, though, had been hit by shrapnel and nails, some of which debris was still lodged in it and was protruding from it. We kept looking back and forth between our battered protective equipment and Gennady; everyone, Gennady included, realized that, had we not been there to cover him, all the shrapnel now lodged in our protective equipment would have struck and killed him.

Gennady’s response planted this man firmly in my heart forever. “God has heard my prayers and has sent you to protect me. Please, let us pray to thank God that we are alive.” I am not myself a religious person, but his words touched me deeply. For the first time in many years I felt the need to pray. We stopped the car, got out and prayed together, holding hands. When we arrived at the house of Gennady’s mother, she invited us in for tea. We all needed it. For me it was important to get to know this man—this farmer who, through luck or through Divine intervention, was not murdered on this day.

Gennady, now in his mid-sixties, has worked on these fields since he left school, interrupted only by his obligation to do national service in the Soviet Army. His father had also worked on these field all of his life, just like his grandfather and his great-grandfather. Gennady has two sons. His elder son is in the Militia, his younger son is with family in Russia. He hopes they can return soon because he is too old to work these fields alone. “These fields have good soil because my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather took care of it and taught me how to take care of it just as I have taught my sons to take care of it. These fields are good to us, we get a good crop. The crops from these fields have fed our family for generations, we are part of this land. We belong here.”

“I will never forget the day when I was told that I was now a Ukrainian citizen and I was living in a country called Ukraine, and that the fields our whole family has always worked were now Ukrainian fields. I had never heard of anything like that before. We are Russians, we have always been Russians. Why did we have to be Ukrainians? This spring, the head of our village told us we were going to be part of Russia again, that everything would be taken care of. That made me happy because Russia is my motherland, it is my home, it is where I belong. But nobody told us that there would be war again. My family have suffered in wars like all the families here. My family have fought for Russia in those wars. We defend Russia but we have done nothing against Ukraine. Why are they trying to kill is? Will Russia protect us?”

When we were ready to leave, we offered to take Gennady back to his farm. He said he would stay with his mother and would walk back later, as he did every day. Every day when his work is done, Gennady walks to the neighbouring village where he has supper with his mother, who is looking after her sick sister. After supper, Gennady walks back home. Normally, this would take him around twenty minutes through his fields but since MH17 had crashed, Gennady had started taking the road because he did not want to disturb the crash victims. The walk now took him around forty minutes. He is a farmer; you can see from his face that he has been working all of his life outdoors, in all kinds of weather; a devout, hard-working, honourable man.

On this day, an attempt had been made to murder Gennady and his close neighbours by shelling a populated area which has no military emplacements, encampments or objectives, and which the government had declared a cease-fire zone. The direction of the inbound shells showed that they had been fired from positions between the two road-blocks manned by Ukrainian irregulars wearing Azov Battalion and Right Sector insignias —the very same units who had denied us access to the area because of supposed ongoing “military operations.”

In the weeks following these events, some of the people involved have received explicit threats which are being taken very seriously by the authorities.

“Col. Tulip”

 
Source: Slavyangrad.org 29-10-2014