When speaking at a meeting of the government before the 9 May Parade Vladimir Putin, who was the president yet, stated that it was going to be for the first time after many years (since 1990) that the military parade on the Red Square was not intended to threat anyone and it was not saber-rattling, but demonstration of the increased defense opportunities of the state for protection of our “rich resources and wealth”. Mr. Putin did not specify whose exactly wealth he meant.  

The soviet parade tradition was restored with a clear political goal of making the visible conclusion of revival of the Russian state power during last eight years. The freshly painted materiel, 111 units, marched through the center of Moscow. As a result, the road surface was damaged in some places as well as an underpass near Byelorussian Railroad Station. The City Hall had to allot 1.4 million rubles for repairing works. Besides, one armed vehicle of BMD-4 model got burnt while marching.     

All the weapons presented at the parade were produced or developed in soviet times. Some of the specimens, introduced as the “up-to-date” Russian armament, were shown at parades of tens years ago.

It was promised that a new mobile intercontinental ballistic missile Topol-M would be displayed, but instead the old Topols were brought to the Red Square. The launching pad of Topol-M has 8 axes while those Topols at the parade had 7 axes, so it was easy to see the difference.   

The Topol missiles began to be deployed in the 80’s. In the 90’s, after Belarus passed to Russia the missiles remaining after soviet union, the number of Russian Topols deployed came up to 360 pieces. Now old model is not produced anymore while the remaining missiles are written off in mass. It’s only a few pieces of Topol-M that we manage to produce a year, so by 2015 or even earlier no Topol missile will have been left deployed.

Dangerous as it is, bringing around the city the real 45-ton solid-fuel missile, of course, it was self-propelled models of the weapon intended to be written off. They probably will be kept for future shows and demonstrating the empty hull of the soviet missile-nuclear shield, to the music by the brass orchestra.    

As it is usual with us, the 9 May parade was accompanied with statements that the presented machinery has no analogs in the world. Tens of years having passed since it was developed, the absence of analogs may only be the sign of its uselessness and backwardness. The military-technical revolution going on in the world, it seems to be missed by Russia. The principally new information technologies and computers appearing, ours just remain where it was at the moment the cold war was over. We might as well have presented our famous Tsar-Pushka made in the medieval times which sure has no analogs in the world!    

Also displayed was the “Favorite” system of C-300PMU-2 model which was introduced, of course, as the best anti-aircraft missile launching pad in the world. Actually, that is the soviet C-300PM model, though equipped with more powerful rocket 48E6E2 and launching pads of cross-country capacity. The control point of “Favorite” is equipped with ancient computers looking like cupboards, without discs used, with CRT’s instead of monitors and with software loaded from tape reels. Those computers are very unreliable and the loading time is too long.    

In 1997, when “Favorite” was first introduced to the public, its chief designer Boris Bunkin explained to me that our military industrial complex does not produce other kind of equipment. As the home production of the components was destroyed significantly, the ancient computers are equipped with some components and circuit boards bought from accidental sellers in abroad (which is done secretly), which makes the equipment even less reliable in operative terms.

If war of any size broke out somewhere in the Caucasus, we should pay a dear price for that backwardness, as it has been many times in Russian history. In June 1941 Germans had radio transmitters on aircraft, tanks and in all the units, while we had orderlies and the wired field telephones and heroic signalers who died in mass when trying to restore the constantly damaged communication. The control over the troops was lost which caused our great defeat of 1941.    

At the beginning of January 1995 in the city of Grozny the Chechen gunmen were defeating our troops again. The Commander of the Staff told me the communication was lost. That situation repeated in Chechnya during the first and second war. In the real battle field our today’s signal service often works even worse than that of Wermacht’s during the WWII.   

In the meanwhile, the new integrated computer systems of control and target designation are developed and employed. Each soldier has both-sided radio transmission and GPS facilities. Each aircraft, helicopter, each military unit is united into networked generalized information from satellites, unmanned aircraft, AWACS planes, from single crews and observers. All that shapes a constantly changing online picture of the battle with the targets designated on it, and so forth.    

All that is called network-centric war which is an obscure word for our militaries. Well, our “defense opportunities” are increasing without all that!