[A-List] Russian privatization story

[Hudsonmi@xxxxxxx]

#19
BBC Monitoring
Russian TV slams privatization of rocket factory
Source: Centre TV, Moscow, in Russian 1700 gmt 31 Oct 04

[Presenter Andrey Karaulov] What is the document you have in your hands, 
Yuriy Semenovich?

[Yuriy Solomonov, captioned as director and general designer of the state 
unitary enterprise Moscow Institute of Heat Technology, professor, 
correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and full member of 
the Russian Academy of Engineering] It is a non-classified document.

[Passage omitted: Karaulov and Solomonov praise President Vladimir Putin's 
decree on 4 August 2004 banning privatization of a number of strategic 
enterprises without special permission from the president; criticize 
Economy Minister German Gref's recent proposal to take certain enterprises 
off the list.]

[Solomonov] Among them [the enterprises Gref is proposing to privatize], 
there are some factories engaged in serial production of the elements of 
the country's strategic nuclear forces. I mean missiles, command and 
control posts and weapon systems forming the basis of the strategic nuclear 
forces.

[Passage omitted: the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and 
Entrepreneurs, Arkadiy Volskiy, in a pre-recorded interview with the 
presenter says that cabinet ministers sometimes ignore presidential orders.]

[Solomonov] What will happen if this proposal is put into effect? I'll give 
you an example. There is an enterprise called Eksiton in Pavlovskiy Posad 
[Moscow Region], where some elements of the Topol-M missile guidance 
equipment are manufactured.

Our institute was holding defence against [former Russian privatization 
chief Anatoliy] Chubays for three years. No government agency assisted us. 
Chubays wanted to privatize this unique enterprise, not for the sake of the 
factory itself, but because of its excellent resort facility on the Black 
Sea coast.

We were repulsing Chubays for three years with the help from the Federal 
Security Service and the Prosecutor-General's Office. However, they tried 
another way and eventually privatized the factory.

[Presenter] Because of its Black Sea resort?

[Solomonov] On the next day the energy and heating providers said that we 
had become rich and refused to supply us with electricity and heating 
unless we pay off the old debts accumulated since 1992.

We have complained to the Prosecutor-General's Office, because the stoppage 
of the factory would mean that serial production of Topol-M missiles would 
be terminated in 2005. Simply, the government-approved plan for the year 
2005 will not be fulfilled.

[Presenter] Topol-M and Bulava are the last Russian great nuclear missiles. 
They and the Satan [SS-18 missile], the great creation of academician 
Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, are forming Russia's nuclear shield.

These missiles give Russia the status of a great power. Moreover, the 
Topols are feeding the country, because they are exported and the demand 
for them is high.

I really don't know, why some people, who are, to put it mildly, not alien 
to Chubays, put a resort hotel on the Black Sea coast above Topol missiles 
and the programme of their production, approved by the president? Why do 
they want to scrap the Topol?

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