OREANDA-NEWS  The number of high-precision cruise missiles in the Russian army for six years has been increased by more than 30 times. This was stated at an expanded meeting of the state Duma Committee on defense, the Head of the defense Ministry, army General Sergei Shoigu.

"The measures taken allowed by 2019 to increase the number of carriers of long — range precision weapons ground, sea and air — based more than 12 times, and high-precision cruise missiles-more than 30 times," - said Shoigu.

He noted that back in 2012, the Armed forces had practically no long-range precision weapons, in particular, there were 30 serviceable carrier aircraft and 37 aircraft cruise missiles.

"Because of the long preparation of flight tasks — about 44 days — there was no talk about the effective use of this weapon," Shoigu said.

According to him, over the past six years, the Russian army has received more than 200 Intercontinental ballistic missiles — both ground-based and designed for submarines. In addition, the troops received seven diesel submarines, three strategic missile submarines "Borey", more than 50 spacecraft and more than 3.5 thousand new and upgraded tanks and other armored combat vehicles.

He added that in the three units of unmanned aircraft was also 91 complex with drones. But they were obsolete and could not perform tasks in modern combat. The Minister said that the troops formed about 40 military units, which are armed with more than 2 thousand modern drones. According to Shoigu, because of the qualitative leap in the development of unmanned aircraft, the army has new opportunities for exploration and destruction of enemy objects with the help of drones.

"So, thanks to laser illumination from drones it was succeeded to give the second life to earlier not demanded high-precision artillery shells "Krasnopol". As a result, their consumption decreased (no more than two shells per one target) and the range of application increased," the head of the defense Ministry explained.

It is planned that this year the Russian Armed forces for the first time will receive shock unmanned medium-range aircraft.