Finance minister warns Russia can't afford military spending plan

[BlueStateSaint]

The sanctions just may be working . . .

Finance minister warns Russia can't afford military spending plan

REUTERS
By Lidia Kelly   2 hours ago

 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's finance minister said on Tuesday the country could no longer afford a multi-billion-dollar revamp of the armed forces approved by President Vladimir Putin, stepping up a campaign to trim spending as sanctions over the Ukraine crisis bite.

 Anton Siluanov said a new defense program should be drawn up to take into account the changed economic situation, even though the deputy prime minister in charge of the sector has been ruling out any cuts in military spending.

 "A new defense program will be prepared now, and in its framework we want to reconsider the amount of resources that will be spent from the budget in order to make it more realistic," said Siluanov, appointed three years ago after his veteran predecessor, Alexei Kudrin, quit in protest over the proposed military spending.

 Siluanov's comments highlight a battle among different factions of the government over defense spending which has heated up in recent months, and which will ultimately be resolved by Putin himself.

 They could indicate the president is preparing the way to postpone or trim some defense spending, foreseen at 23 trillion roubles ($576 billion) in the decade to 2020 under his original plan to upgrade 70 percent of military equipment by then.

There's a problem with the sanctions--Europe gets a huge amount of natural gas from Russia, and winter's approaching . . .

The rest of this is here:  http://news.yahoo.com/finance-minister-warns-russia-cant-afford-military-spending-150729690--sector.html