MOSCOW, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Foreign partnerships for military technology are possibilities for Russia but domestic plants will never assemble foreign analogues, the Russian president said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed his country's national security council, saying it was time for his country to "catch up" in terms of military technology, reports Russian news agency RT.
"In essence, we should make a breakthrough in the modernization of our defense economy, like the one that happened in the '30s in the last century," he was quoted as saying.
Putin said Russian defense companies could use foreign technology but domestic plants wouldn't be allowed to assembly analogues of foreign weapons.
The Kremlin aims to invest about $715 billion during the next 10 years in an effort to upgrade about 70 percent of its defense arsenal, RT reports.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told Rossiya 24 TV this week that the military needed to work to keep up with U.S. military research. An "ultramodern" route for the future, he said, would aim to develop technology that's capable of penetrating air defense systems and conducting a strike on "any aggressor."
