Russia for the first time in 20 years has reduced military spending

For the first time in almost two decades, Russia's military spending in 2017 has declined, and by 20% compared with the previous year. This is stated in the report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released on May 2.

Фото: Depositphotos

SIPRI experts point out the deep economic recession caused by falling oil prices, as well as the effect of international sanctions that negatively affect the Russian economy, as the main reasons for this process. "After flexing its muscles in countries including Ukraine and Syria, Moscow is being forced to cut military spending, raising questions about the country's future operations," the report said.

At the same time, SIPRI experts recorded a significant increase in military spending in other countries. Thus, in China the growth was 5,6% ($228 billion). The United States retains leadership in this area with $610 billion in 2017.

Independent Military Analyst Alexander Golts in an interview with the Russian service of Voice of America, he noted that the SIPRI scores are very specific. According to him, the complex method of calculation used by the experts of the institute often does not coincide with the official figures.

“But indeed in 2017, and this is recognized by the Russian government, there was a significant reduction in the military budget,” he added. – This happened due to the fact that in 2016 the state decided to pay all interest on loans and partly the loans themselves, which were previously taken out by enterprises of the military-industrial complex (DIC). Before this, defense industry enterprises were allowed to take out loans from commercial banks. However, in 2016 the situation became critical, since interest had to be paid, but there was no money for this. Therefore, the state significantly increased the military budget so that enterprises could pay off their debts.”

In addition, in 2017, a decline in defense production was revealed, which was not adequately funded, the analyst stated. In his opinion, all this together led to a reduction in the military budget.

“Since 1999, military spending of the Russian Federation has increased by 20% every year,” he emphasized. “This is an unthinkable thing for any country.” At some point we reached the peak. The military component resulted in a number of “successes”:

for example, the annexation of the Crimea, the secret war in the Ukrainian Donbass, the operation in Syria, and so on. This later turned into sanctions by Western states, which led to significant problems in the economy. ”

It seems to Alexander Goltsu that now Russia, being engaged in military construction, will be forced to proceed from economic realities. At the same time, he is confident that the problems with financing will not force Moscow to change its aggressive course in the foreign arena.

“This is exactly like the famous joke when the government increased the price of vodka, and the child asks: “Dad, will you drink less now?” - “No, you will eat less.” Of course, there will be no changes in this sense.”“, the analyst concluded.

In turn, the head of the laboratory of the military economy of the Gaidar Institute Vasily Zatsepin in a comment to Voice of America, he cited another reason for the decline in Russia's military spending:

“Firstly, the level that was achieved in the 2016 year proved to be unbearable, and, in principle, it was not planned to be maintained further at such a high level. Plus, the sanctions were one of the factors that hampered the implementation of the armament program of the country, caused shifts in the timing of the execution of orders for a number of samples. ”

Military spending cannot grow endlessly, they have been growing annually for almost 20 years, the economist is sure.

“In addition, this reduction (expenses) did not happen suddenly, it was included in the three-year budget, and it was announced in advance,” he said. — Another thing is that, perhaps, the reduction turned out to be more significant than originally planned in accordance with the budget. Because on the eve of December 1, the president decided to reduce military spending by 205 billion rubles simply because of the inability to fulfill the 2017 state defense order, which was caused by errors in planning. First of all, the reason for this is the deceitful plans of our military department. The previous weapons program was also very dubious in terms of feasibility.”

According to Vasily Zatsepin, the calculations of the Russian military department are “based on sand”.

Both experts also agreed that even in an abbreviated form, military spending is, of course, still an exorbitant burden for the country and the population.

“Within the budget for education and health care, there was a reduction even more significant than for defense ... Of course, the Russian leadership is still choosing guns instead of butter for the people”,” summarized Alexander Golts.

In 2017, military spending according to the Russian budget amounted to 66,3 billion.

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