The expenditures of the Russian Federation on defense in 2015 rose by 48 percent compared to the previous year, to 2.9 trillion rubles. Such data, according to RBC, are contained in the annual report sent by Russia to the UN Office for disarmament Affairs (UNODA).
More in 2015, according to the provided in the UN data, Russia has spent on the Navy — 700,3 billion, an increase of 38.6 percent compared to 2014.
The most greatly increased the cost of air force — 66 percent, to 662,4 billion rubles. Due to this, the budget of the air force, renamed the Air and space forces, for the first time exceeded the expenditures of the army.
Part of the rise in costs, the air force may be associated with operations in Syria, said a member of the Duma Committee on defense Vladimir Bessonov. However, RBC says, it could just be the result of the unification of the air forces and aerospace defense.
In the Federal 2015 budget on section “national defense” was laid 3,18 trillion rubles. Sent to UN data approximately correspond to this figure.
However, experts surveyed by RBC indicate that the reports provided to the UN, Russia regularly understates its defense spending. Thus, according to the head of military economy laboratory of the Gaidar Institute Vasily Zatsepin, according to RBC, the total military expenditures of the Federal budget, if you count them in accordance with a UN standard, in 2015 amounted to 4.28 trillion, almost 1.5 times more than declared.
The UN standard implies that countries report on expenditure for the maintenance of its military personnel, operations and maintenance, procurement and the establishment of a weapons research and development. Military expenditure is understood as “all financial resources that a state spends on the needs and functions of its armed forces.”
The UN collects data on the military expenditures of States since 1980. Russia began to provide these data in 1994.
