MOSCOW, Mar. 1 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday urged the Russian Air Force to speed up the modernization of its equipment, with new arms accounting for less than 80 percent of its military arsenal in the coming decade.
Russia's Armed Forces will receive more than 1,500 airplanes and helicopters and about 200 air defense systems within the next decade under the state armaments program, Putin said in televised remarks.
New hardware will make up at least 80 percent of the Air Force' s weapons and 75 percent of the air defense arms, Putin said at a government meeting on military aviation.
Long-term contracts to supply the Air Force with 130 warplanes were signed in 2008 and 2009, he said. "In 2010, 27 planes, more than 50 helicopters and five S-400 missile systems will be purchased for the army."
Putin believed that Russia's fifth-generation jet fighter would be put into service with the Air Force from 2015 as planned, although the jet should complete over 2,000 test flights before it goes into serial production.
He also pressed the aviation industry to start work on a new- generation long-range strategic bomber.
"We should not limit ourselves to just one new model. After the fifth-generation fighter jet, we must start work on a next- generation, long-range aircraft, our new strategic bomber," he said.
Russia's fifth-generation fighter, the T-50, successfully finished its maiden flight in the Far East late January. It is Russia's only known fifth-generation warplane project and is designed to rival the U.S.-made F-22 Raptor, so far the world's only fifth-generation fighter in active service.
The Tupolev aircraft maker said last year that a new-generation strategic bomber would be developed by 2017, while production should start in 2020 to 2025.
