LYUBERTSY (Moscow Region), May 17 (RIA Novosti) - The S-400 antiaircraft missile system will come into service in the Russian Air Force in late 2005, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy commander-in-chief of the Air Force, said.

"By late 2005 the first regiment with the S-400 will be deployed in the Moscow region," Nogovitsyn told journalists on Tuesday.

"The S-400 embodies the best our industry can do today. The future of the Russian Air Force belongs to it," the deputy commander said. The state tests held have proved that the S-400 can launch small- medium-, and long-range missiles and hit targets in flat and ballistic trajectories.

At the same time, the general found it hard to say precisely when warplanes of the fifth generation will be adopted for service in the Air Force.

Much work is being done at every stage of creating the new plane, he said. "Such a plane is no simple doing. It must be that the dialectic law of quantity passing into quality should work," General Nogovitsyn joked.

He explained that, relying on that, the Russian Air Force is mapping out a modernization program amassing the components realized in the fifth-generation warplane.

"Its image is taking shape," he added.

Nogovitsyn said that Russia and Ukraine are going on with joint work on the An-70 military transport plane.

At the same time, the question of purchasing An-70 planes has not yet been brought up. "Tests still continue," the general said.

In turn, Major-General Alexander Pavlov, deputy commander-in-chief of the Air Force for armaments, said: "A test team of Russian specialists is back from Ukraine recently. They were eliminating bugs in the D-27 engine for the An-70." The engine will be tested in midair during the upcoming flying tests, he said.