He added that it won’t be long before Russia has eliminated its lag behind the United States and Israel in the sphere of combat and reconnaissance UAVs.
"Concerning the UAVs I should only say that there is no point in speaking about some lag. It has been rapidly reduced and will be completely eliminated soon," Rogozin emphasized.
Addressing the lessons the Russian arms manufacturers have learned from the operation in Syria, Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia’s antiterrorist operation there had won big kudos for the Russian Aerospace Forces, which were able to quickly deploy to a remote theater of military operations.
He heaped praise on the Aerospace Force technicians who, working in a combat situation, managed to keep the aircraft in excellent condition, and also the accuracy of fire, which convinced the Defense Ministry to order more such systems.
“This is important also politically. Just imagine what would have happened if we had missed the targets again and again and killed civilians there,” Rogozin noted.
He noted that the Russian Aerospace Forces’ successful performance in Syria has earned the country’s defense industry many lucrative export contracts.
“You can tell people at all kinds of military expos how good your arms are, but their effective use in real combat is the best proof and this is exactly what happened in Syria. Hence the big jump we’ve seen in foreign orders for our weapons, above all warplanes,” Dmitry Rogozin pointed out.
“It means that we have equipped our Army and Navy with high quality weapons,” he added.
This is being done at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Most of the Russian military aircraft left Syria in May 2016 after their task was successful fulfilled.
