Russian business to Putin: we need heavier weapons for drone defence

MOSCOW, May 26 (Reuters) – Russian companies are ready to finance the purchase of heavier weapons and electronic systems to defend their plants from drone attacks, Alexander Shokhin, head of Russia’s most powerful business lobby, has told President Vladimir Putin in a meeting.

Russian industry – including oil refineries, oil storage facilities, fertiliser plants and ports – has suffered from a surge in Ukrainian drone attacks this year.

The government has already authorised the use of automatic rifles of 7.62 caliber – such as the AK-47 – by private security companies guarding industrial sites and has allowed reservists to be drafted into local units protecting these sites.

MECHANISM NEEDED TO FUND WEAPONS PURCHASES

According to remarks posted on the Kremlin’s official website, Shokhin said the companies needed “not only light weapons of 7.62 caliber, but also larger ones, including various electronic warfare systems, laser installations and other calibers”.

“Businesses are ready to finance all this work, but a mechanism is needed where financing schemes are clear. This could be a fund of some sort or another form of targeted financing,” Shokhin – head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs – was quoted saying.

Shokhin also asked Putin for a deferral of penalties over delays in tax and other payments to the state budget while companies repair facilities damaged during the attacks.

He also complained to Putin that, despite the decision to use reservists, units guarding the plants were being shifted between sites too often, weakening their defences.

(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Holmes)