Russia must be able to demonstrate the strength of its ‘iron fist' clad in a kid glove of diplomacy in the current complex military and political situation, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.
"Our policy must be the policy of an iron fist in a kid glove. It must turn enemies into partners, partners into neutrals and neutrals into allies and immediately into friends," Rogozin said at the founding congress of the Voluntary Movement in Support of the Army, Navy and the Defense and Industrial Complex.
Rogozin was recently appointed as a deputy prime minister to oversee Russia's defense industry.
"No one must have any doubts that under this layer of the glove, under the glove, there must be an iron fist, tough and ready to strike any aggressor and a group of aggressors if they dare to attack Russia," Rogozin said.
Russia's state armaments program for the next decade aims to produce 400 ICBMs, eight strategic nuclear submarines, 50 surface warships, 600 combat aircraft and a thousand helicopters, he said.
