MOSCOW, September 10. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s new armaments program for 2016-2025 is a special-purpose mechanism designed to enhance the combat capability of its Armed Forces, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Russia began drafting the program in 2013. “It will be the fifth largest state program of the sort in the past 20 years,” the president said.

The program will also help to overcome the crisis in the Russian defence industry and spur its growth, he added.

Putin said large amounts of money had been invested in the program, signifying an almost 10-fold increase from 2.5 trillion roubles ($67 billion) in 2001-2010 to over 20 trillion roubles ($540 billion) in 2011-2020. And an additional 3 billion roubles ($81 million) have been earmarked specifically for the development of the defense industry.

Such concentration of resources was necessary in order to rearm the Army and the Navy within a short period of time, upgrade defense enterprises and make up for the setbacks suffered in the previous years when the defence industry was struggling to survive.