Voenno-promishlenniy kurier. June, 23, 2004
Ilya Luchnikov

A new, English language journal entitled Moscow Defense Brief has rejuvenated the list of Russian publications devoted to the problematic of armed forces, defense industry and international military-technical relations. Well-known military expert Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), is the founder of this new resource. The publication is directed at foreign governments, policy makers, industrialists, political and economic experts, and researchers interested in Russian and/or CIS affairs. It should be mentioned that the demand for such a publication has long been in evidence. Moscow Defense Brief will include several interesting articles translated from CAST’s Russian language flagship publication Export Vooruzheniy.

Moscow Defense Brief is divided into four sections: Russian Armed Forces, Defense Industry, Arms Trade, Facts & Figures. The first issue focuses on the development prospects of Russian ballistic missiles and the naval component of the Russian nuclear triad announced by Vladimir Putin in February 2004, the Unified Russian Aircraft-Manufacturing Corporation, a brief overview of Russia’s military-technical relations in 2003. The section on the defence industry highlights the Indian arms market, with articles on Russian-Indian military-technical relations, the transfer of the admiral Gorshkov Aircraft Carrier to India and an interview with General Director of NPO Mashinostroyenia Herbert Yefremov, devoted to the supersonic anti-ship missile Brahmos.

The information in Facts & Figures part is presented in tables containing data ib Russia’s international military-technical relations in 2003 with a special section on the Russian-Indian arms trade from 1999-2004.

The content of Moscow Defense Brief is provided by CAST staff, in cooperation with such well-known experts as Ivan Safranchuk, Mikhail Barabanov and Vasiliy Kashin.

The European presentation of the publication was held in Paris on 17th June.