Saturday, February 26, 2011

Russia unveils huge rearmament drive

From the Telegraph:

The Kremlin has unveiled the biggest rearmament programme since the fall of the Soviet Union, saying it intends to buy 600 new planes, 100 new ships and 1,000 new helicopters within the next decade.

The ambitious overhaul will cost the equivalent of £406 billion and comes at a time when other countries around the world such as Britain are cutting their defence spending to try to balance their national budgets.

But with oil prices rising, Russia, the world's biggest energy exporter, feels confident it can afford to upgrade its dilapidated Soviet-era military and believes it urgently needs to do so in order to confirm its self-proclaimed status as a major world power.

Vladimir Popovkin, Russia's deputy defence minister, said the rearmament programme would be sweeping.

"The main task is the modernisation of the armed forces," he said. "Nineteen trillion roubles (£406 billion) will be allocated for this. We are not interested in purchasing any foreign weapons or military equipment."

Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, has joked he is frightened to even imagine how much the Kremlin is about to spend on arms, while Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, has said that defence spending will account for 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product in future, up from 0.5 per cent now........read on

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