Arms exports and restructuring in the russian defence industry.

The defence industry has been one of the industries most seriously affected by the Russian economic crisis since 1992. The main restructuring policy applied in the industry during the first years of transition was conversion, that is, trying to re-use military resources for productive civil ends. By the mid-1990s, however, such a policy was already considered a failure, and since 1997 the Ministry of Economy has taken over the running of the defence industry and changed the direction of reform. In the summer of 1999 the responsibility for the running of the defence industry was transferred to five independent agencies, and this remains the situation. From 1997 the aim was still to restructure the defence industry, but by using arms production itself as a fundamental reference point