Russian Military Expenditure To Reach $78 Billion By 2015

Despite economic troubles and foreign sanctions, Russia’s military expenditures is expected to balloon in 2015 owning to a number of arms purchases.

According to business news daily Vedomosti, military defense spending will rise in 2015 by 21.2% on 2014 to reach $78 billion.

“This means the real growth of defense expenses, as the inflation rate is planned at 6% in the draft budget in 2015. Meanwhile, in 2016-2017 the real growth of military expenditures will be low and close to the inflation rate: 7.8% in 2016 and 4% in 2017,” the report said.

Detailed distribution of expenditures on the largest defense budget articles for weapons purchases, personnel and combat training was not made in the draft federal budget for 2015-2017.

Only scientific-research and research-and-development spending are envisaged in separate large articles of the main financial document. Meanwhile, according to the draft budget, $6.5 billion are planned to be spent on weapons development in 2015.