Russia to spend 600 billion dollars for armed forces by 2020
English.news.cn 2010-09-21 21:23:37 F
MOSCOW, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Russia will purchase armament and military equipment for 19 trillion rubles (about 613.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Tuesday.
"This is a minimum we need to equip our forces with the modern weaponry. We could ask for more," Serdyukov said as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Earlier Russia's government planned to allocate for the needs of the Defense Ministry up to 13 trillion rubles, but the ministry's high-ranking officials insisted that those money could satisfy only the needs of strategic nuclear forces, anti-aircraft defense and air forces.
They asked in June 2010 for 36 trillion rubles (about 1.16 trillion dollars) to cover the needs of all types of Russia's armed forces, excluding Navy and space forces.
Anatoly Serdyukov said Russia might purchase military technology from the U.S. for the first time. He mentioned Russian military could be interested in buying the automated command systems, information technology and "smart" weapons.
The Russian government plans to upgrade the weaponry by 70-80 percent