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Despite boasts, Russia's weaponry shows its age
ZHUKOVSKY, Russia - At a once-secret airfield outside Moscow, test pilot Sergei Bogdan proudly introduces reporters to what was billed as the latest in Russian military aircraft technology, the Su-35 fighter-jet.But the plane is only an upgrade of a 20-year-old model - and it can't match the speed and stealth of the U.S. F-22 Raptor, which entered service in 2005. Former President Vladimir V. Putin, now Russia's powerful prime minister, has boasted of new weapons systems and of strengthening the armed forces, raising fears in the West of a Cold War-style military buildup. Flush with oil money, the Kremlin is in the market for new weapons. But Russia's state-run defense industries, experts say, face a crumbling manufacturing base and pervasive corruption; they have produced little advanced armament in the Putin era. Posted by: mrp 2008-08-03 |
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