Russian Defense Budget Continues To Increase

The direction of defense spending in Russia continues to go one way, up.

Russia's Defense Ministry will spend around one trillion rubles ($40 bln) of federal budget funds in 2008, 20% more than in 2007, a ministry official said on Tuesday.

"The Defense Ministry will spend a little less than one trillion rubles in 2008, which is about 20% more than last year," Deputy Defense Minister Lyubov Kudelina said.

She also said that in 2008-10, military spending would account for 15.5-16% of aggregate federal budget expenditure.

The Navy still expects to get 25% of the full military budget. For comparison purposes, last year the Navy spent around 13 billion rubles on shipbuilding, 10 billion of that on new SSBNs. It will be interesting to see how the budget increase effects shipbuilding, and if SSBNs continue to dominate the Russian shipbuilding budget.

Hat tip Rick