60 Minutes: Russia Has Accomplished What USSR Couldn’t and Overtaken US Military Tech!

60 MINUTES

- All of you, of course, remember Khrushchev's call to catch up and overtake America. So, we did it! They've already officially admitted it overseas. It caused real mayhem in the Pentagon. The U.S. Secretary of Defense himself admits that, taking into account the latest achievements of the Russian defense industry, the United States have no other choice other than to catch up with our country.

 

HYPERSONIC MISSILE TSIRKON

At last, they saw it! And this happened despite their swollen military budget, which will be sixteen times bigger than ours next year. Nonetheless, it's very, very difficult to catch up with a state that has hypersonic weapons. They only can... I don't know, envy us in silence? But the Americans can't do this.

- Tell us about this hypersonic missile. Is the USA working on one?

Matthew Rosenberg: "Hypersonic missiles are incredibly fast. They can pass almost any ballistic missile defense system we have. The United States is also working to create this weapon, and so is China. It's unclear how advanced the development is in each country. Last year, Putin also said that hypersonic missiles would be commissioned in 2018. But it didn't happen. Therefore, if Vladimir Putin says that they have these missiles, it doesn't necessarily mean that they really do".

"When an official representative of the Department of Defense Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Carver was asked to comment on Putin's speech, he said, "We see the incoming messages but we have nothing to say about the Russian statements." In recent years, Pentagon and the U.S. Armed Forces have been working on creating a hypersonic weapon, and, in August, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that America might have such weaponry in the next couple of years".

- Mr. Tretyakov, can we handle a new arms race?

Vitaly Tretyakov, politics expert: Of course, we can. If we pursue clever and well-weighted policy. I should add that, even though the Ukrainian experts were evacuated, I feel compelled to add that they have no idea what people they are dealing with. This woman—and I went to Crimea dozens of times when it was under Ukrainian rule, they dream of returning to Russia— this woman doesn't care about trains, or energy supply, or whatever... She cares about something that concerns millions of people who live in Ukraine: when armed groups of the free and independent Novorossiya liberate Ukrainian territory from the Nazi...

- I wish the Ukrainian expert hadn't been evacuated.

- ...these armored vehicles will be rained with flowers by, among the others, some Ukrainian experts who are now foaming at their mouths here in Moscow.

- Mr. Tretyakov, they are gone! That's it. They aren't here anymore. Calm down!

- Now, about…

- She will kiss a missile next time, don't worry.

- Did you even go to Crimea? How many times?

- Once when I was a child. It was a part of Ukraine.

- Why are you arguing with me then? I've been there dozens of times.

- Let's continue the competition.

- Have you been to Smolensk? I have.

- So have I.

- What else should we argue about?

- Hey, comrade young politician!

- I've been to such places where you would definitely never go to.

- Let's stick to the subject.

- I wish you had been here last time, you would've discussed with the Banderites who did what in Crimea.

- I have nothing to discuss with them.

- Konev doesn't like the Banderites. It's in his name.

- As for the arms race. Putin has said many times - what's the use of repeating that? -  that we aren't entering an arms race. And it's evident that they are trying to cut expenses on military equipment, on rearmament. There's no use in chasing the USA. All the more so that the difference in prices makes it not so reasonable to compare the two budgets. I just would like to point out that it's similar. And it proves that we can make equally successful reforms in other fields after the 1990s and 2000s.

- How did we overtake them? What helped us?

- What helped us was taking into account three components: the development of new equipment itself— both old Soviet developments and new ones; next, they ensured good financial security for engineers, designers, workers at defense plants, service-people who adopt this equipment for service, as well as the country's leaders' and population's good moral attitude. When these three components are transferred to other segments of the Russian economy, we'll see the similar results. Where are we really overtaking the USA? Where are we still catching up? Well, secret military analysts know this. And thank God they don't tell us everything.

- Please!

- A man who lives in Russia, as a man who served in the army, I can only be proud that we are the best in this scientific research, that we made this discovery, invented this missile.

- With such a modest budget at that! Show those columns again, they are very impressive. I haven't even formed my attitude towards this.

- The Americans don't even do this.

- Look at their military budget and ours.

- The thing is, it's very expensive nonetheless. I don't like the fact that big money…

- Yes! Look at the difference!

- I know this. But I can cite other numbers. Golikova stated that 5,000 people started their careers in medicine this year. But Shoygu said that they have 14,000 lieutenants. Why do we need to arm the country?

- Fair point.

- Why should we constantly think about war when we need…

- We have long borders.

- Listen, and then we act surprised when we see NATO expanding. Do you know the length of the Russian border? You were in Crimea only once!

- It's not about the border length or any numbers.

- It's fair that we need to achieve something in medicine, overtake other countries. We can absolutely agree with Konev on this.

- Let me finish. I'm not saying we shouldn't achieve anything in the military field. We need to think about our budget. It's not quite right to change the subject now, but I believe anyway that we need to sell some guns and cook buns.

- For whom?

-To feed people.

- We're selling guns. We have a stock of orders for $50 billion.

- We should sell even more and invest this money in the social policy, in our economy.

- Do you realize that our $50-billion stock of orders equals our military budget?

- I realize this perfectly well. Nonetheless, these are very big expenses.

- It means that if we fulfill these orders within a year, it'll cover all of our arms expenses, all of our defense expenses.

- I have a right to think that a part of this money could've been spent on the population.

- Your right can't be grounded on your ignorance.

- Wait a sec, guys!

- Why ignorance?

- First of all, I'd like to say that what we hear now is the reasoning of a man who doesn't have any clue about either the military or the state budget. First, I should point out that our military budget has been decreasing for the last three years.

- So what? I talked about how many people go into medicine and into the army.

- I didn't interrupt you, I listened to you. Second. The percentage of the military's share of our budget against our GDP has been constant, it's 3.5%. It's not our formula. This is an international economic formula that states that, yes, these expenses don't influence the economic state of the country. In this case, we don't deprive Smolensk teachers or Moscow doctors of this money.

- But we could've given them more.

- We can't give them more.

- Why?

- I'll explain.

- Explain it to them.

- Because…

- Don't explain this to me.

- Just ask the Yugoslavs or the Iraqis. They'll explain.

- I don't care about Yugoslavia.

- It's because you weren't there when the Americans bombed them.

- Of course, I didn't!

- Armed forces are an umbrella under which everything develops and everything is calm. It's our roof. Anyone who says, "Let's spend less on the roof" is the same as…

- How did we overtake them, having such budgets? The difference is…

- There are several reasons for that. The first and the key reason is that, at the end of the 1990s, the commandment of the armed forces conducted a very good analysis and made a good decision in the further development of the armed forces. When the money came, they were allocated to specific programs, which had been approved by that time. That is why, yes, on the one hand, we used our old drafts, while on the other hand, the prices are completely different. You should understand that the American military and defense industrial complex and the American funding system…

- Are swollen.

- ...of the armed forces have dramatically degraded in the 30 years since the USSR collapsed. They wasted almost $1 trillion on the F-35 program, their main aircraft. But it's almost already clear that these programs have failed. We, for that matter, were spending selectively. I'll share one interesting detail with you. I remember 1999, when we had absolutely different armed forces, but even then the head of the general staff held special meetings on that very Kalibr. They decided what they weren't going to fund to raise officers' wages instead. "Be we need the Kalibr anyway." And the Kalibr was built at the very time when it was needed.

- The officers took offense now or just became tense.

- Back then, everyone understood it correctly.

- Let's hear the design principles of the hypersonic weapon. What is it, in general?

Alexander Leonov, Head of Air Defense: "Prospective air defense systems based on new physical principles are being developed for the Army's Air Defense. A weapon that is based on physical phenomena and principles that haven't been used before for defense purposes, for example, laser, radio-frequency, beam, and kinetic engagement with an enemy, has been in creation in Russia for at least the two last years. After the New Year's celebrations, we will continue creating a prospective mobile air defense artillery system with a 57-mm automatic gun with enhanced ballistic properties and a set of ammunition. This combat machine to replace the Shilka anti-aircraft system in the troops will be capable of delivering fire both on the move and from water, eliminating small drones easily, which is not deemed reasonable for any other air defense systems due to a number of reasons that can be summarized with an well-known phrase: you don't need a musket to shoot a butterfly. It's expensive and inefficient".

- Mr. Abzalov, this statement about new physical principles scares me a little. I thought they have all been known for a long time.

Dmitry Abzalov, Center of Strategic Communications: No, you don't understand that transfer to the new physical principles overthrows the entire system. For example, they can reach hypersonic. They are approaching it, by the way. -We're the first…

- They promise by 2021 or 2022.

- They have just started properly funding this project. China will make it faster. It's not what matters. Hypersonic is the ultimate weapon. The problem is not creating hypersonic, the problem is creating an air defense system that can take it down, like the S-500. The problem is that it sends all the previous schemes to square one. For example, you created an air defense system in Eastern Europe, but after we presented the Sarmat, this scheme no longer works, because it can attack from either the south or the north. The same goes for…

- Are we going to attack? And defend ourselves.

- All I'm saying is, if you don't build this system, you're engaging in a long-term arms race. If you build regular weaponry, it's no use competing with a country that has an actual $448 billion budget. The thing is, we need to place our bet on a weapon that gives a crucial advantage. This is our main goal. And Moscow managed to do it.

- And they'll be too overstraining to catch up with us.

- We detected the points that allow us, having a small budget, to save a colossal amount of money. The second important point. About 70% of things that you now have in this room are connected to the military defense industry, from the internet to mobile phones. Everything that is being manufactured now is a conversion of things that were developed in the defense industry. Let me remind you that the prototype of the internet was a closed information exchange between closed strategic structures in the USA. From this point of view…

- What will happen if this thing shoots?

- It's not the Peresvet, it's not quite how it works. It doesn’t' shoot.

- What will remain from the thing it attacks?

- It doesn't shoot with a laser.

- It just burns up all the electronics in any aircraft. And it will cease to exist. It consumes a lot of power.

- Let me remind you that this is our goal. If we want to become efficient in any sphere, be it the economy or social policy, we need to focus…

- And we really want it.

- Really!

- Not if we want — we do want. What do we do?

- How will the defense industry help us? We have to focus our resources on the most important, break-through things, instead of evenly spreading them. We need to focus on the things that give us the most influence. This is what the defense industry is about

- They've just announced the creation of an alleged S-400 killer, the PrSM. It's funny because they could hardly equip it with five speeds of sounds, five Machs, as they say. It has a speed of 1.6 km (1 mile) per second.

- Forget about them.

- As long as we have 10-20 Machs.

- We can already make three times as much.

- We will get back to you very soon to discuss hatred. Can you imagine?