Requests Accelerated Artillery Production, Russian Defense Minister: Stop Playing, It's Related To Performance In The Battlefield

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. (Wikimedia Commons/Mil.ru/Ministry of Defense)

JAKARTA - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told military manufacturers to "stop playing around" and increase the production of self-moving artillery systems.

Defense Minister Shoigu visited weapons-producing factories in the industrial city of Ural, Yekaterinburg, on Tuesday, saying Russia was increasing air defense missile production after a series of Ukrainian drone attacks targeting cities and energy infrastructure.

In a video published by the RBC news website on Wednesday from Shoigu's visit to the factories, he rebuked the management of a factory for not producing enough artillery to move on its own.

"Listen, stop playing here, friends. We're getting busy with this in 2022. We should have operated these machines at full capacity by 2023," he told factory officials.

"I would like to accept within a week specific proposals on how we will achieve the indicators set by the president (Vladimir Putin). This must be done, because all these orders are related to the very specific performance of jobs on the battlefield," he stressed.

Meanwhile, the company's director said the plant had increased production sixfold in the last two years.

Russia itself is known to have put its economy at a war level and shifted defense factories to production around the clock, to meet the needs of its troops in Ukraine.

The defense industry will supply military equipment "several times" more this year than in 2022 and 2023, Interfax news quoted Defense Deputy Minister Alexei Krivoruchko as saying this month.