Russia in 2017 reduced military spending by 20 percent, which became the first decrease in allocations in almost two decades.
After “muscle flexing” in several countries, including Ukraine and Syria, Moscow is forced to reduce military spending, which threatens its future operations. The reasons for the move is a deep economic recession caused by a plunge in oil prices in 2014, as well as the impact of Western sanctions related to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian bureau wrote, referring to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
