SHANGHAI, June 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is committed to advancing its military technical cooperation with China, President Vladimir Putin said after a meeting with the Chinese president.
"We have talked about advancing our collaboration in the military-technical sphere. The volumes are very large, worth billions of dollars, and we intend to maintain these volumes," he said.
Putin said bilateral trade in the first three months of 2006 had grown 53% on the same period last year.
According to the Pentagon, China buys about 95% of its new weapons from Russia. Its 2006 Annual Report on the military power of the People's Republic of China said Russia remained the leading supplier of weapons to China and continued to cooperate with the country on a variety of technical and logistics issues, which allowed China to maintain and modernize its large military potential.
According to Pentagon analysts, China has bought Su-27 Flanker fighters and Su-30 Flanker interceptors, AA-12 Adder medium-range air-to-air missiles, SA-10 Grumble, SA-15 Gauntlet and SA-20 Triumf surface-to-air missiles, 3M-54E (SS-N-27B) anti-ship cruise missiles, Kilo-class diesel submarines, Sovremennyi-class destroyers, Il-76 Candid transport planes and Il-78 Midas in-flight refueling tankers.
The report said China had recently increased its efforts aimed at forcing Russia to sell the most advanced weaponry to the country, although Russia was historically cautious about the transfer of modern military technologies to its Asian neighbor.
The Pentagon said in 2000-2005 China had concluded a series of contracts on military hardware supplies with Russia worth $13 billion, and had already received $11-bln worth of weaponry under these deals.
