"The system based on a power vertical did not work,” said Yury Solomonov, chief designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MIT) at the Academy of Sciences, in his “Nuclear Vertical” book to be published in March. In the book, he himself, as well as officials and generals involved in the development of missile technology, are referred to under easily-recognizable pseudonyms. Under Solomonov’s leadership, MIT developed the intercontinental ballistic missiles Topol, Topol M and Bulava. It was the unsuccessful tests of the Bulava that led to Solomonov’s resignation from his post as director of the institute last summer, although he retained the post of chief designer.
The author describes, in particular, a closed meeting in the first half of the 2000s in Novoogarev chaired by then-President Vladimir Putin on the establishment of new military equipment.
There was not even a protocol issued of its results, and all the energy of the meeting’s participants “died away, but it turned out that that was convenient for everyone.” In response to Solomonov's statement with the proposal to use defense enterprises to combat corporate raids, Putin asked only, “So, you think we need to get rough?”
No more efficient, according to the author, was a similar meeting held by President Dmitry Medvedev, apparently, in 2009.
These memoirs by the current chief designer of the military industrial complex that pass judgement on the current political leadership are unprecedented in Russia, said Ruslan Pukhov, a member of the public council under the Defense Ministry.
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