Russia Reopens Soviet Weapons Lab, What It Can Test Hints at Kremlin's Ambitions
Russia is building up military infrastructure in what appears to be preparation to defend its interests in the resource-rich Arctic region.
The move suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to ward off potential encroachment by NATO.
The Central Scientific-Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, which is located just outside of Moscow, makes weapons for Russia’s military.
Last week, the company said it reopened a Soviet-era laboratory in order to test weapons in extreme Arctic conditions, Reuters reported. The weapons maker is known as TsNIITochMash, according to the news agency.
The facility was shut down in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The industrial laboratory has since been restored to be capable of simulating extreme conditions — such as extreme cold, heat and wet weather — so Russia can test military equipment.
The facility recently received state certification, which will enable it to begin weapons testing soon, Reuters reported.
“Certification was the final technical stage in restoring the unique testing technology that was lost after the Soviet collapse and that was only owned by our institute,” Sergei Karasev, a senior official at the Central Scientific-Research Institute, said in a statement, according to the news service.
The facility can now test-fire small arms, special grenade launchers and small-cannon armaments at extreme temperatures, ranging from minus 60 degrees Celsius (or minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit) to plus 60 degrees Celsius (or 140 degrees Fahrenheit), the weapons maker said in a release, according to Reuters.
The Artic region could become a trigger for geopolitical conflict amid escalating tensions involving several of the world’s most powerful nations, according to the pro-Putin Russian news agency RT.
“The Arctic has been tipped as a potential flashpoint for military tensions, with Russia, the US, UK, Canada and China all conducting exercises in the region and expanding their capabilities for cold-weather conflict,” RT reported.
“The renewed interest in the frontier is linked to receding ice sheets, which have opened up new channels for shipping. Russia, which spans much of the region, has set a target for at least 80 million tons of goods to flow through its frigid waters by 2024.”
The mainstream media wasted the past five years hyperventilating over the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
Meanwhile, Putin has openly suggested that he’d prefer to have Democrat Joe Biden installed as president.
Why? Because the Democratic Party is more similar to the Communist Party than the GOP is, he explained.
“First, the Democratic Party is traditionally closer to the so-called liberal values, closer to Social Democratic ideas, if compared to Europe,” Putin told Rossiya 1 TV in October. “And it was from the Social Democratic environment that the Communist Party evolved.”
He added that the American media’s unhinged attacks on President Donald Trump over the past four years have been excellent propaganda for Russia.
Putin explained that it “enhances our prestige, because they are talking about our incredible influence and power. In a way, it could be said that they are playing into our hands, as the saying goes.”
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