Kremlin unveils £406 billion rearmament program

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Kremlin has unveiled the biggest rearmament program since the fall of the Soviet Union, saying it intends to buy 600 new planes, 100 new ships and 1,000 new helicopters within the next decade.

The ambitious overhaul will cost the equivalent of £406 billion.

With oil prices rising, Russia, the world's biggest energy exporter, feels confident it can afford to upgrade its dilapidated Soviet-era military and believes it urgently needs to do so in order to confirm its self-proclaimed status as a major world power.

Vladimir Popovkin, Russia's deputy defense minister, said the rearmament program would be sweeping, according to a report in The Telegraph.

"The main task is the modernisation of the armed forces," he said. "Nineteen trillion roubles (£406 billion) will be allocated for this. We are not interested in purchasing any foreign weapons or military equipment."

Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, has said that defense spending will account for 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product in future, up from 0.5 per cent now.

The shopping spree would reshape the Russian navy, giving it 35 new corvettes, 15 new frigates and 20 new submarines, 8 of which would be nuclear-powered and armed.

Much of the enormous spend will be channeled into Russia's strategic missile forces with several hundred mobile S-400 and S-500 defense missile systems on order and a new intercontinental ballistic missile in development capable of carrying ten nuclear warheads.