Military budget of the Russian Federation

Russia plans to cut military spending in the next three years

The government is spending a lot of money to finance the military-industrial complex (MIC), and waiting for the appropriate return. This was said yesterday the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the costs of the defense industry. At the same time, relevant departments have already warned of reduced funding limits for the next three years. According to budget projections, spending on defense in GDP will be reduced from 4.3% to 3.1%. Economists say the worsening departmental competition for budgetary resources.

Heads of the Ministry of Defense and defense companies will report today before President Vladimir Putin on the implementation of the state defense order for the second quarter 2015. President must submit a new system of financial monitoring of the state defense order. All events will be held in a videoconference with the National Control Centre defense of the state.

Government spending "good money" to finance the state defense order, said yesterday Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. "We are engaged in debugging mechanisms of defense procurement, and to its financing allocated amount is very significant. The state defense order was made almost 100%. This year, the appropriate goals and spent very good money, despite the very difficult situation in the financial sector. Therefore, we can expect that the money will bring the desired result, "- said Medvedev at a meeting of the costs of the defense industry in the years 2016-2018. He stressed that allowed stable financing for the past three years to completely renovate the park of weapons, and already by serial purchases.

Now the main task the defense industry - import substitution, the development of aviation and shipbuilding, electronic industry, space activities, the implementation of projects of nuclear power complex, listed prime minister. Adding, however, that the Finance Ministry has already informed the profile departments of the budgetary constraints on the 2016-2018 years.

"The budget of the complex. Before Minpromtorga, Roscosmos, the state corporation "Rosatom" and a number of other structures brought limits for the period 2016-2018 years "- said Medvedev.

Recall that according to the draft Guidelines of budgetary policy for the years 2016-2018, defense spending will be reduced quite significantly - along with the social policy of the national economy and national security. Military spending will drop from 4.3% of GDP this year to 3.1% of GDP in 2018.

The Higher School of Economics remind that after 2009 for defense spending grew rapidly and in conjunction with the cost of national security, their share in total expenditures reached a record 34% in 2015. In the next three years it is expected to decline to around 2012 levels. "To a certain extent this reduction is achieved by eliminating the indexation allowance for troops," - says the "Commentaries on the state and business," the HSE. It notes that today's increased competition for resources between social and power units defies previous support mechanisms of social stability.

At the same time the Ministry of Finance in the report on the effectiveness of budget spending on the reduction of spending on defense industry said rather vaguely. "It is necessary to determine the optimal spending on defense. The share of defense spending in Russia is higher than the average for the OECD countries and BRICS countries - more than 4% of GDP, compared with values ​​of about 1-2% of GDP for both groups of countries. Taking into account the rather difficult geopolitical situation, you need to find a level of expenditures for these purposes, that is, on the one hand, will not worsen the conditions for economic growth, and on the other - will guarantee to strengthen the country's defense. It is necessary to achieve the highest possible return on aimed at the defense budget expenditures ", - the report says.

kvs wrote:The talk of cutting from 4.3% to 3.1% is complete garbage.   Russia's military spending will not be reduced to 70% of its current
levels in the next 3 years.   It will keep on growing.    There is no indication at all that the planned increases from year to year
are going to turn into decreases.   The rate of growth will be reduced but that is it.

When I do Google searches on Russian topics of almost any sort I get a deluge of links to doomsday propaganda about how
Russian this or that is in total crisis.   The subject of the military spending cuts is subjected to this same hysterical propaganda
and you can see it in this thread.

Please, people, stand back and look around.   Russia's GDP is not imploding by 17% year on year like Ukraine's.   There will be
growth by the 4th quarter.   Why the f*ck would Russia need to slash its military budget by 30%?  

kvs wrote:The talk of cutting from 4.3% to 3.1% is complete garbage.   Russia's military spending will not be reduced to 70% of its current
levels in the next 3 years.   It will keep on growing.    There is no indication at all that the planned increases from year to year
are going to turn into decreases.   The rate of growth will be reduced but that is it.

When I do Google searches on Russian topics of almost any sort I get a deluge of links to doomsday propaganda about how
Russian this or that is in total crisis.   The subject of the military spending cuts is subjected to this same hysterical propaganda
and you can see it in this thread.

Please, people, stand back and look around.   Russia's GDP is not imploding by 17% year on year like Ukraine's.   There will be
growth by the 4th quarter.   Why the f*ck would Russia need to slash its military budget by 30%?  

PapaDragon wrote:Now you have same thing with reversed roles. Bizarre...

Russia Can't Afford To Buy Its New Super Weapons
Russia may be coming to the realization that developing a high-tech weapon system is not the same as fielding it en masse, or even in relatively limited numbers. This appears to be the case for both the T-14 “Armata” tank, the T-50 5th generation fighter, and signs are possibly the PAK-DA next generation bomber.
The T-14 has been Russia’s most celebrated new weapon system as of late. Regardless of its capability (though it’s by no means a “silver bullet” weapon system), in order to be really effective it needs to be fielded in relevant numbers. Originally the idea was to replace the majority of Russia’s front-line stable of ‘legacy’ main battle tanks with the T-14, amounting to about 2,300 in total, with production ramping up in the short term.

Instead of producing thousands of the tanks over next five years or so, some analysts put the number as little as a few hundred. This is partly because the cost of the tank has ballooned to about two and half times what was originally projected. As a result, the Kremlin will likely focus on modernize existing system, such as its T-72 and T-90 tank force.
The same situation is also occurring with the Kremlin’s new stealthy fighter, the Sukhoi T-50. Originally the Russia was aiming at building about 150 T-50s by 2020, then the number was scaled back to just 52 units with the first batch entering operational service in 2016. Now, that number is being drastically scaled back once again to just 12 aircraft, which really equates to an expanded test and operational validation force at best. What’s worse is that as production numbers plummet, unit costs increase. This is what is commonly referred to in Pentagon parlance as a weapons program “Death Spiral.”

India, which has invested partially in the T-50 project (also referred to as the PAK-FA) for its own derivative of the jet, has also been less than enamored with its progress and capabilities. Not to mention that the Indian Air Force just spent billions of dollars on 36 French Rafale fighters with more almost certainly on the way.

Then there’s the fact that there are tensions between the two nations when it comes to maintaining Inida’s existing Su-30MKI fleet. Spare parts availability and engine reliability have also been of major concern when it comes to India Su-35MKIs. This, along with other major recent purchases by India of aircraft made by western aerospace manufacturers, leads many to believe that New Delhi may turn away from Russia for its military aircraft needs.

All this equates to a fighter program that may slow to snail’s pace. As such, it then blurs the lines between a very costly research and development experiment and an actually viable front-line weapon system that Russia can hang its air combat helmet on for the foreseeable future.

Finally, we get to Russia’s next-generation bomber, the PAK-DA. Recent declarations that Russia will be putting the Tu-160 Blackjack back into production may be telling as to the future bomber’s feasibility. The choice to put a Cold War era bomber, one that was highly expensive back then and will be now, while also upgrading their existing force, seems like odd choices for an air arm that supposedly has a cutting edge bomber that will be flying by the end of this decade and coming online operationally around the middle of the next.

Part of this is just a numbers game and part of it is a reality — or lack thereof — game. Russia has been hit by sanctions in a way that is directly affecting their weapons procurement strategy, there is no doubt about it. This was not planned for five years ago or more when many of these programs were being launched.

Still, the valley between what Russia says it can do economically and what it actually can do is so wide that sanctions alone can’t explain the massive slowdown in Russia’s military modernization. It’s clear that Russia is simply unrealistic when it comes to its military technology ambitions.

This is hardly an uncommon phenomenon. The Pentagon has its own woes in this regard as well, although the unraveling of so many key and trumped up programs so fast has not been seen when it comes to the U.S., even in the Department of Defense’s post sequester reality.

With all this in mind, we will probably see just enough T-14s and T-50s to participate in parades, flyovers and to spearhead military exercises, but Russia will most likely continue to fall back on procuring and updating existing conventional weaponry while drastically updating their submarine and land-based nuclear capabilities. This offers a maximum “bottom line” deterrent while also maintaining a usable and affordable conventional force. It also allows Putin and the Kremlin to continue on without losing clout with the Russian people by not having to fully cut leading-edge programs seen as a national source of pride and international competitiveness. And it allows Russia to continue to parade around these programs while actively trying to sell them to anyone with who will buy into them.

This more rationalized approach to weapons procurement is not unlike that of the Cold War. We often forget that even at the height of tensions between East and West, America had to buy the F-16 and F-15 due to budgetary limitations, and that is just one example. A high-low capability mix was a strategy of necessity as much as anything else. The same was true for the USSR to an even greater degree, where numerical advantage was chosen more over a qualitative one.

The policy of procuring an almost all gold-plated, maximum capability at seemingly any cost force is an advent of the post-Cold War military industrial complex. It remains as unrealistic as it was in the Cold War, for both the U.S. and Russia. Russia is now having to come to terms with this reality, while the U.S. is not... yet.

kvs wrote:Not a single f*cking budget number in the whole article.  I am sick and tired of reading "journalist" excrement
about subjects that require hard figures but have only opinion fluff instead.

If you stand back and evaluate this spam of western "journalism" you will see nothing but wishful thinking and
projection.   It's a severe psychological pathology that taints all western thought and makes the west extremely
dangerous.

George1 wrote:Russia's military spending in 2016 will be reduced by 225 billion rubles