did not go to plan and has ordered shortfalls - which have sometimes included a lack of basic equipment and training - to be urgently addressed.
Russia still controls a significant chunk of Ukraine however, and Mr Putin has said that Moscow will prevail despite fierce Ukrainian resistance and Kyiv receiving billions of dollars of Western weapons along with military intelligence and other help. Ukrainian servicemen unload plastic bags containing the bodies of Russian soldiers collected from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. PHOTO: AFPHe declared this week that the state would ensure the army’s needs were met, with “no funding restrictions”, but said there was no need to “militarise” the economy.
On Friday, he told defence industry chiefs he wanted to hear their proposals on how to iron out unspecified problems and wanted defence industry specialists to work directly with front-line forces to refine weapons and hardware on a regular basis.A trade union leader in the Urals region told the Tass news agency last week that companies involved in defence orders there had moved to a six-day week with workers on shifts of up to 12 hours.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday visited the Kalashnikov arms factory in Izhevsk and told its director that the state would “significantly increase” orders from the plant next year, the Zvezda military news channel said. REUTERS