Did Russia Just Cut Its Defense Budget by a Whopping 25 Percent?
Nope--and here is why.
Dave Majumdar [2]
A new report from Jane’s [3] suggesting that the Kremlin is undertaking draconian defense cuts is wrong, a top analyst specializing in Russian affairs says. While the Jane’s report cites cuts of twenty-five percent—or one trillion rubles—the actual reductions are only about seven percent or roughly 230 billion rubles.
“Russian defense budget is going from 3.07 trillion RUB in 2016, to 2.84 trillion RUB in 2017, a reduction of ~7%, which is about 1% harsher than announced in October of last year,” Michael Kofman, a research scientist specializing in Russian military affairs at the Center for Naval Analysis writes. [4] “The original estimate for the 2017-2019 budget plan was a 6% reduction over that period of defense spending. The difference now is about 230 billion RUB.”
Source URL (retrieved on March 21, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/did-russia-just-cut-its-defense-budget-by-whopping-25-19831
