It is “necessary” for Russia to increase production of latest types of weapons: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the director general of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, and spoke about skills shortages and rapidly rising wages among military industries, according to a Kremlin readout.

Putin said it was “necessary to increase the percentage of production of the latest types of weapons,” according to a transcript of the meeting.

Chemezov stated Rostec, the state-owned high-tech giant, was trying to find sufficient highly-skilled personnel.

“Our average number [of staff] is 592,000. Unfortunately, we still do not have enough people. This year we will urgently need to close 23,000 vacancies, we will recruit – these are highly qualified specialists, of course,” Chemezov told Putin according to the Kremlin readout.

Chemezov also spoke about the growth of wages at the company’s defense enterprises, which was 17.2% last year because many factories worked “both on weekends, and on holidays, and at night, and these days are paid, of course, at an increased rate.”

“The fulfillment of the state defense order for the last year, 2022, amounted to 99.5 percent. This figure is quite high. We have increased production volumes for all types of military products, which are massively used today in the special military operation,” Chemezov told Putin.

Putin also spoke about the need for Rostec to increase production of drones.

“Both the Kub and the Lancet showed themselves very effectively [in the SVO zone]: firstly, the blow is powerful, any equipment, including foreign-made equipment, not only burns, but ammunition explodes,” Putin added.

It was necessary to increase their production of UAVs “Kub” and “Lancet” even more, he continued.

On August 3, Putin said at a meeting with industry leaders in the Kremlin that a combination of military spending and domestic demand was driving the Russian economy, with employment in manufacturing stable.

The Russian leader stated that wage growth was due to labor shortages. He said Moscow needs to “attract people, to interest them in a higher level of wages. And this is already beginning to affect the position of small and medium-sized enterprises in a certain way.”