"Keith W" wrote in message
...

"D" wrote in message
ink.net...
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In article , "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

Well, what is really strange that Russia has enough money (due to
high
oil prices) to spend on military acquisitions..

Well, Mr. Snarky, the fact is that they *don't* have the money to
spend--or
have you missed their gyrations with executing more and more "barter"
exchanges of late?

Do you actually read newspapers?

As the original poster noted, higher oil prices have helped the Russians
out
a lot, bringing in a lot more revenue than only a couple of years ago.

A big problem with the Russian economy is that people don't pay their
taxes,
so the government has been cash poor. But they do have a major asset in
oil
resources, and when oil prices go up, more money pours into the treasury.

So the original poster was right--their revenues have gone up because of
increased oil prices.


However the OP also claimed those revenues were available
for weapons purchases. This does not follow, in fact the total
funding for the Russian armed forces in 2004 was $14 billion.
Of that only $4 billion was earmarked for purchases and that
is for all 3 services.

Compared with the defence budgets of the USA ($417 billion),
or even the UK ($55 billion) this isnt going to buy
a lot of development.

To put it into perspective against the exported energy values, the estimated
total export volume for Russia in 2004 was about $182 billion (according to
a US DOE estimate), of which some 55% was credited to the energy sector. So
if the Russians put every penny they got from oil/gas/coal/electric exports
into their defense budget (a ludicrous assumption, as a good chunk of that
money is now going to a Russian hedge fund designed to allow it to survive
downward fluctuations in the oil price--apparently they have accrued some
$16 or $17 billion in that account since its inception in JAN 2004), it
would still be less than 25% of the US amount.

www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/russia.html

www.citibank.ru/russia/pdf/eng/bal_rus2004.pdf

Brooks


Keith