Russian Aerospace Forces must be active, mobile, offensive - deputy commander-in-chief
MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) - The Russian Aerospace Forces must be capable of not only destroying hostile weapons in the air, but also engaging aviation at airfields and precision weapons carriers, the Forces' Deputy Commander-in-chief and air defense and missile commander Lieut. Gen. Viktor Gumyonny said on Saturday.
"The specifics of Russia's geostrategic location consists in the main threat to its military security being posed by foreign groupings of aerospace weapon systems. The experience of military conflicts of the past few decades shows that defense alone cannot solve the problems of war. This is also characteristic of the aerospace sphere of warfare," Gumyonny told journalists on Saturday.
Therefore the Russian aerospace defense must be active, mobile and offensive, he said.
"It means that what is needed is not just to destroy aerospace weapon systems in flight, but to also engage aviation at airfields and destroy precision-weapon carriers of an enemy, including surface ships and submarines, suppress enemy aviation-control system, reduce the efficiency of the use of space satellites by the adversary," the lieutenant general said.
The Aerospace Forces is a branch of the Armed Forces, which is capable of both defensive and offensive operations simultaneously, he recalled. "Meanwhile, the single leadership is addressing a broad spectrum of tasks: to protect our state from aerial and space attacks, to hit enemy targets, and to launch and control military-purpose spacecraft," Gumyonny said.