Russia for the first time did not hit the top five countries in terms of military spending. Moreover, according to SIPRI, Russia’s military spending has been declining since 2016 and amounted to $ 61.4 billion in 2018, a decrease of 3.5%. However, it is necessary to take into account the fact that budgets are considered in US dollars, and in 2018 the national currency of Russia significantly depreciated, therefore, to talk about the reduction of the military budget is not entirely correct. In our opinion, Russia’s military spending has continued to grow since 2010 in real terms, but is declining when converted into US dollars due to the weakening of the national currency.
