REUTOV, Russia—When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, an elite defense force provider once known as Invent Bureau No. 52, acknowledged for making intercontinental ballistic missiles, fell on exhausting instances. Military spending had dropped so sharply that the corporate used to be compelled to create civilian products resembling railway timetable boards.
Its considerations were identical old of Russia’s depleted militia. Conscription had stopped in some locations, desertions were on the upward push and some officers were homeless as the authorities struggled to pay them. Military hardware used to be left to rust or used to be stripped for parts. Funding for recent weapons blueprint and technology used to be drained.