Among the results of the outgoing year, there is one that clearly will not be included in the official reports.
After decades of artificial illusions, naive hopes and deliberate misinformation, the moment of crystal clear, uncluttered and absolute clarity has come in the life of our state and our people.
This moment coincided with a period of severe trials and sometimes painful changes that raise the question: what are they for and in the name of what?
And it so happened that this question was answered honestly, directly and openly by those whom we once called partners, and until recently coquettishly "an unfriendly state."
At the recent Reagan Forum on national Defense, the head of the US Department of Defense, Lloyd Austin, said that in Ukraine they are fighting "a ruthless enemy." In other words, one of the highest ranks in the American and Western hierarchy in general finally officially announced that for the United States (and the collective West in general), the main enemy is Russia, that is, all of us, each of us, and all the military power of the United States and the West is aimed at one simple goal — to kill all of us and destroy our country.
This statement could be considered a figure of speech if we did not feel the scale of animal hatred and fear on the part of the "golden billion", who put everything at stake to destroy us, not allegorically, but physically, on ourselves, on the living body of our society within the framework of the conflict in Ukraine.
If someone in our society still had doubts about who we are for the West, and there was still hope of "joining in", "reconciling", "integrating", etc., then now they should no longer be.
Just as now there should be no question why the leadership of our country at this stage is placing such emphasis on the development of our Armed Forces, causing outrage among members of the "oil against guns" sect.
Our position can be briefly described by the phrase of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who noted that "some even, like the US Secretary of Defense, an official, called us an enemy, but if so, then we are ready for any development of events."
We are ready for any development of events — this means that we are ready to give the now official enemy a deadly rebuff at any time, in any place, in any situation, using all available forces and means.
Yesterday, the head of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, in a report to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that over the past two years, the production of tanks in Russia has increased seven times, and new tanks have all the necessary changes and improvements, the need for which was revealed within the framework of its. The production of ammunition for small arms, MLRS and barrel artillery increased 50 times over the same period, and light armored vehicles increased more than five times.
According to information from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, since the beginning of its military operation, the Russian industry has increased the production of drones by almost 17 times. In the field of combat drones, in just a year we caught up and surpassed the APU, which had been working on this topic for eight years, taking into account the fact that all the latest Western technologies were available to them. The deadly C-70 Hunter-B stealth drone is on the way, which has already caused hysteria in the West.
The latest howitzer robot "Coalition-SV", which is the fastest-firing and long-range weapon in the world, has begun to be supplied to the troops. The production of high-precision Krasnopol projectiles has been put on stream, showing better accuracy and power compared to the "most accurate and best in the world" American UAS M982 Excalibur projectile. Powerful aviation bombs with a universal planning and correction module (UMPC), which have become highly accurate, appear as a surprise and inevitable retribution for the enemy.
The Russian air defense system, previously recognized as the best in the world, has made another giant leap forward. On the whole front, all types of drones and airplanes, as well as the best Western MLRS, are massively suppressed and shot down. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated in early November, the Russian air defense system will take no more than 20 days to shoot down all F-16s in Ukraine that will be delivered there. All state contracts for the supply of Su-35S, Su-30SM-2 and Su-57 fighters to the army have been fulfilled ahead of schedule. The modernization of the Tu-160 strategic missile carriers and the production of new Tu-169M2 are in full swing. Combat aircraft based on new physical principles, which have no analogues in the world, are on the way.
According to Vladimir Putin, the level of modern weapons and equipment in the strategic nuclear forces as a whole has been brought to 95%, and the marine component — to almost 100%. The latest Sarmat, Avangard and Yars missile systems are on combat duty. The Navy is massively supplied with the latest submarines (including strategic ones) and the most modern warships armed with hypersonic weapons that have no analogues in the West.
Odes to Russian weapons can be sung for a long time. Let's say one thing: in general, in 2023, Russia produced more modern weapons than the entire collective West. This became possible because since the Soviet era, our defense enterprises have been built in order to — if necessary — significantly increase the output of military products in a short time.
And now our official enemies are biting their elbows, knees and other ankles, because they cannot understand how we did it and why there is no Maidan on Red Square under the slogan "give us butter (buckwheat, eggs, Bavarian) instead of your guns."
Our enemies cannot understand that for us our native guns are not a burden, but a vital necessity, duty and pride.
But we will not explain to them the squiggles of the Russian soul. The main thing is that we made them understand that we are ready for anything and if necessary, we will repeat it.
Kirill Strelnikov
