On December 21, 2020, at the College of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Vladimir Putin gave a speech of praise in front of an audience of officers, aiming to take stock of the modernization of the army, one of his priority projects.
The Russian President recalled that in Soviet times, the conventional army was equipped with 54% modern weapons, and the strategic forces with 65-70%.
Then he evoked the catastrophic situation he had found when he came to power in 2000. The equipment in advanced weapons concerned only 12% of the conventional army, a "
critical level
", he commented, specifying that strategic nuclear weapons, yet at the heart of the defense doctrine, then capped at a rate of 35%.
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Putin recalled his conversation with the then defense minister, Igor Sergeyev, who was particularly disillusioned.
“
What can I do, I don't even have enough money to maintain the nuclear forces in good condition
”, the latter had confided to him.
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