Russia announces massive weapons procurement programme

The Russian Defence Ministry announced an ambitious weapons procurement programme totalling 640 billion Australian dollars over the next decade.

The rearmament programme is the biggest since the fall of the Soviet Union and includes the purchase of 100 new ships, 600 new planes, 1, 000 new helicopters and 10 new air defence systems.

The overhaul 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 ($640 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.

Deputy defence minister Vladimir Popovkin boasted that the shopping spree would reshape the Russian navy, giving it 35 new corvettes, 15 new frigates and 20 new submarines, eight of which would be nuclear-powered and armed. In total, he estimated, the navy, which is currently badly trailing the US navy in terms of modern ships, would take delivery of 100 new vessels before 2020.

Despite his claim that Russia would not need to buy foreign military hardware, two of the new vessels will be French-built Mistral class helicopter carriers. Russia will build itself a further two new Mistrals at its own shipyards, he added.

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