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| Russian President Vladimir Putin Addresses the Opening Ceremony of the “Army-2022” forum |
Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia is ready to sell advanced weapons to its allies around the world and cooperate in developing military technology. Putin's remarks came nearly six months after the Ukraine war raged, in which the Russian military was judged by some to have fared worse than expected.
In the opening ceremony of the "Army-2022" forum President Vladimir Putin said "(We) are ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons, from light weapons to armored vehicles and artillery to combat aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles."
With Russian troops defeated from two of Ukraine's largest cities and slow and costly advances in the eastern provinces, the war on Ukrainian soil has so far proved to be an inconclusive show for the Russian arms industry.
However, in a speech at an arms show outside Moscow, Putin insisted that Russian weapons were superior to the competition. He said Russia values its strong ties with Latin America, Asia and Africa and is ready to provide allies there with a wide range of weapons from small arms to armored vehicles, artillery, warplanes and drones.
"Almost all of them have been used more than once in real combat operations," Putin said. According to him, Russia's offer includes high-precision weapons and robots. "Many of them are years, or maybe decades ahead of their foreign counterparts, and in terms of tactical and technical characteristics they are significantly superior to them," Putin stressed.
Russia ranks second after the United States with arms sales of about $15 billion a year, almost a fifth of the global export market. From 2017 to 2021, 73% of those sales went to just four countries – India, China, Egypt and Algeria – according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.