Overlooked in recent days was new RF Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov’s announcement about the “mass use” of counterfeit materials and parts in Russia’s OPK.
Interfaks-AVN reported Krasnov told fellow prosecutors at a “broadened collegium” in Moscow:
The mass use of counterfeit materials and parts by OPK enterprises is a cause for special alarm. Considering the strategic character of this problem, it’s necessary to carry all planned oversight measures to their logical end.
We know “logical end” means arrest and convict people, don’t collude with them.
Krasnov continued:
. . . the condition of legality dictates the need to increase the oversight component in strengthening financial discipline, reducing the indebtedness of OPK enterprises for unmet obligations and increasing the quality of military products.
Krasnov claimed during the past year military prosecutors uncovered more than 44,000 legal violations in the OPK.
TASS reported Krasnov directed military prosecutors to ensure MOD officials responsible for “military acceptance” respect relevant laws and exert control over the fulfillment of GOZ work.
Counterfeiting in Russia’s defense industry isn’t novel. It just doesn’t get much attention. There are likely egregious cases of counterfeit equipment that never surfaced. But a few have:
- An official in the MOD’s 1st TsNII (Shipbuilding) said in 2018 that counterfeit parts were hampering Russian efforts to build its own ship engines to replace those once bought from Ukraine and Western countries.
- As late as the first half of the 2010s, torpedo maker Dagdizel was “recycling” parts from old dismantled weapons for “new” torpedoes.
- Several managers at Zvezdochka were arrested in 2015 for using fake parts in the repair of Indian Kilo subs.
- An experimental Ka-60 helo crashed in 2010 due to faulty tail rotor parts made by an unauthorized “underground” manufacturer.
- The MiG-29SMT fighters sold to Algeria and returned in 2008 is just the most famous scandal. Some “new” parts on those planes were stamped in the early 1990s.
Some recent glaring example of counterfeiting in Russia’s OPK must’ve sparked the new Prosecutor General’s comment but we just haven’t learned about it yet.
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3 comments
American military and NASA have had similar problems, I think with fasteners, which may have been made in China. I think NASA has had to resort to close scrutiny of the entire supply chain to make sure parts and fasteners were manufactured in the facility and to the standards which contracts specified. I think they have had to utilize tracking or possession similar to evidence tracking for criminal evidence. Cutting corners or a tendency to fraud seems to be universal.
I looked a bit more on counterfeit parts for NASA and faulty parts from a plant making aluminum parts for satellite launch didn’t open. There were false quality control and certificates for thousands of parts for years, and two satellites with 700 million dollars worth of launches were lost. The company ended up paying 46 million dollars in penalties and was barred from government work in the future. That’s one case there are thousands of cases, refurbished, for new, lots of things, remarked parts, old serial number removed with “plasma” and new ID number etched on. That’s NASA and I think military services experiencing the same problems. Counterfitters are ingenious, but the problem is industrial grade is substituted for military grade and NASAHas even higher standards and has difficulty with manned space launch standards and now NASA is contracting most of its vehicles to commercial corporations such as Space X with musk and I think Deep Blue is another company.
China is developing heavy if not extreme lift to orbit capacity with its series of Long March rockets.
Russia shouldn’t feel alone with counterfeit parts problems and solutions are likely to be expensive and possibly involving law enforcement. Even employees may provide false certification of parts.
There is also a black market for parts for weapons, aircraft and with the aircraft industry being challenged with the pandemic right now, companies may be tempted to obtain cut rate prices, but there may be problems when they do so.
The previous comments are stupid enough for having a risk to be deleted.