Putin tells Russian defense industry to ramp up weapons production

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country’s defense industry chiefs and weapons producers to accelerate their production to ensure that Russian army quickly got all the weapons, equipment and military hardware it needed to fight in Ukraine.

During a visit to a center for arms manufacturing in Tula on Friday, the Russian president asked for a steady supply of military equipment in “shortest possible time-frames.”

"The most important key task of our military-industrial complex is to provide our units and front-line forces with everything they need: weapons, equipment, ammunition, and gear in the necessary quantities and of the right quality in the shortest possible time-frames," Putin said.

"It's also important to perfect and significantly improve the technical characteristics of weapons and equipment for our fighters based on the combat experience we have gained" he added.

He told defense industry chiefs he wanted to hear their proposals on how to iron out unspecified problems and wanted defense industry specialists to work directly with front-line forces to refine weapons and hardware on a regular basis.

He declared this week that the state would ensure the army's needs were met, with "no funding restrictions", but said there was no need to "militarize" the economy.

Putin also pledged “no limits” on spending now to help his army win the war.

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The Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the Kalashnikov arms factory in Izhevsk on Friday and told its director that the state would "significantly increase" orders from the plant next year, the Zvezda military news channel said.

A trade union leader in the Urals region told the TASS news agency last week that companies involved in defense orders there had moved to a six-day week with workers on shifts of up to 12 hours.

The development came in the wake of Putin's previous remarks this week, who stressed that his army should learn to fix the mistakes it had gone through in Ukraine as he promised to do whatever it takes to prosecute a war that is nearing the end of its tenth month.

He has signaled that Moscow will prevail despite the Ukraine receiving help of NATO along with billions of dollars of weaponry and military intelligence aid from the west.

On the other side of the ledger, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky upon his return to Kiev from Washington, pledged on Telegram, "We will overcome everything."

He also said, "We are coming back from Washington with … something that will really help," as he referred to the 45 billion dollar military and economic aid package for Ukraine approved by the US.

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