Russia entered the top three countries with the largest military expenditures. This is stated in the annual report of the Stockholm international Institute for peace studies (SIPRI).
“Russia increased its spending by 5.9%, to 69.2 billion dollars, being in third place in the list of countries with the highest military spending,” the report said.
Russia ranked third in the world in military spending after the USA and China, however, significantly trailing from them.
China’s military expenditure increased by 5.4% and amounted in 2016 $ 215 billion, and the leaders of the United States increased spending by 1.7% to 611 billion dollars. World military expenditure in 2016 was 1 686 billion, or 2.2% of world GDP.
In 2016, 55% of the Russian military budget went to Finance the state armaments program, the report said.
Increased spending on the military sphere in Russia, says the SIPRI report, in 2016, came against the backdrop of a sharp decline in such spending among oil-producing countries due to the fall in oil prices.
As noted in the report of SIPRI, defence spending countries in Western Europe to grow for the second year in a row – last year they increased by 2.6%. A leader in the build-up of defense spending in Europe was Italy – it costs increased by 11%. Similar pattern is observed in the countries of Central Europe, which last year increased spending by 2.4%.
In February, Deputy defense Minister Yuri Borisov said that more than 1.4 trillion rubles (about 25 billion U.S. dollars) will be spent to Russia in 2017 for the purchase of arms and military equipment.
Recall, as was stated by the NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov, on defense and security in 2017 in Ukraine has allocated an unprecedented budget of more than 5% of GDP.
