MOSCOW, September 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian military expenditures will grow in 2015 as it was planned despite foreign and domestic economic problems mainly thanks to weapons purchases, business news daily Vedomosti reported on Wednesday with reference to an explanatory note to the draft federal budget for 2015-2017.

Military defence spending will rise in 2015 by 21.2% on 2014 to reach $78 bln.

“This means the real growth of defence expenses, as the inflation rate is planned at 6% in the draft budget in 2015. Meanwhile, in 2016-2017 the real growth of military expenditures will be low and close to the inflation rate: 7.8% in 2016 and 4% in 2017,” the daily reported.

Detailed distribution of expenditures on the largest defence budget articles for weapons purchases, personnel and combat training was not made in the draft budget. Only scientific-research and research-and-development spending are envisaged in separate large articles of the main financial document. Meanwhile, according to the draft budget, $6,5 bln. are planned to be spent on weapons development in 2015.

This draft budget means that military expenses will increase next year despite all foreign and home economic problems approximately in the same amount that was planned in the previous year, expert of the Centre of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Konstantin Makienko believed. However, the real growth of spending on weapons purchases may be not so large as it seems to be, because each year price growth in defence industry exceeds the inflation rate set officially, the expert noted.