The Defense Contractor That Builds Russia’s Weapons
Rostec faces the twin challenges of fueling an industrial-scale war and reshoring production of key components under sanctions. It is making incremental progress.
Rostec is a Russian state-owned defense enterprise that employs over 700,000 people across hundreds of individual subsidiaries and partially-owned companies, making it one of the largest employers in Russia, the largest Russian defense contractor, and one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world.1 Among many other things, the corporation supervises the production of Russian tanks, small arms, trucks, buses, automobiles, rail vehicles, ammunition, optics, machine tools, gas turbines, helicopters, and all military and civilian fixed-wing aircraft, including jet engines. It is Rostec that is today ultimately responsible for the production of many historic Russian brands, such as Kalashnikov rifles, Kamaz trucks, or Lada cars. Although it is by far the largest corporate entity in the Russian defense industry, Rostec is also a major player in Russian industry, manufacturing, and high-tech writ large.