“We will not be able to strengthen our position in the world, develop the economy, our democratic institutes if we are not able to protect Russia,” Prime Minister and candidate for president Vladimir Putin writes in an article published in newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
The arcticle, one of several written by Putin over the last weeks, was published on Monday as he visited the far eastern industrial city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
During his stay at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association, Russia’s largest aircraft-manufacturing enterprise, Putin reiterated that he intends to spend 23 trillion RUB (600 billion EUR) on military spending over the next decade, an unprecedented sum in the country´s post-Soviet period.
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In his article, titled “To be strong: a guarantee for Russia´s national security” Putin stresses that the military investments are absolutely necessary and “can not be postponed”. He maintains however that he is not aiming at the “militarization of the Russian budget”, but rather that the country now needs to make up for a long-time “cronical lack of military financing”.
The prime minister outlines a major renewal of Russia´s military capacities. “It would be unthinkable to build on the old structure,” Putin writes . “We only had one choice – to build a New Army, he underlines.
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According to Putin, the future of military warfare will be dominated by outer space capabilities, information technology and especially cyberspace activities, all of them fields, which will be given priorty in Russia´s military investments.
For now, however, it will be the strategic forces, which will remain the backbone of Russia´s military power.
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“As long as the gunpowder of the strategic nuclear arsenal, created with the enormous efforts of our fathers and grandfather, remains dry, no one will dare to engage in full-fledged aggression agains us”, Putin maintains.
