"In reality, these sanctions are yet another attempt to force Russia out of the relevant segment of the European, and in prospect the global market," Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian upper house's Defense and Security Committee, said Wednesday.
Bondarev has stressed that the competitiveness of Russian armaments and military equipment on the international arena will be ensured by improving their characteristics, and not through market mechanisms widely used by the US — "such as sanctions against our country, the coercion of dependent countries, dumping military products and other unscrupulous methods. "
The statement was made in the wake of US President Donald Trump signing a law in August, implementing additional sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.
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In its latest sanctions, the US targets those who will make "significant" transactions to companies of the Russian military-industrial complex and the country's special services, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson notifying Congress about the list of Russian companies.
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However, Bondarev noted, these measures will not affect the industry.
"Military-technical cooperation between Russia and foreign countries has been successfully carried out despite all sanctions. And it will be implemented in the future," the senator said.
He recalled that, according to the speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the projected amount of arms and military equipment exports is $15.3 billion, which is "a very worthy indicator."
According to the lawmaker, the Russian side has never put commercial interests above international security.
"We choose our trade partners and control the use of our military production sold abroad with great deliberation. This principle of Russia's geopolitical behavior will remain unchanged," Bondarev said.
Russian state arms development program
Bondarev has also spoken about the new Russian state arms development program to 2025.
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"We are currently focusing on the development of a new state arms development program to 2025. The key issue of this program is the improvement and large-scale introduction of high-precision weapons, new physical principle weapons, such as hypersonic ones," Bondarev told reporters.
Weapons of new physical principles are weapons based on physical processes and phenomena not previously used in conventional weapons (cold, gunshot) or in weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, bacteriological).
The term is conditional since in most cases, the physical principles used in these samples are already known, but their implementation in weapons is new. Depending on the principle of operation, the following types of weapons of new physical principles are distinguished: laser, radio frequency, beam, kinetic weapons as well as others.
The official concluded that Russia's "powerful" defense industry potential is successfully being fulfilled.
