Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced billions in investments for the rearmament of his country’s navy.
“In the next decade, 8.4 trillion roubles (around $97 billion) are earmarked for the construction of new boats and ships for the navy,” Putin said on Friday at a meeting on navy development in St Petersburg, according to Russian news agencies.
The new equipment and rearmament of the fleet is due to new dangers and challenges, Putin said. He referred to the development of drone and robot technology, digitalization, but also the political situation in the world.
He did not specifically address the war against Ukraine, which he started and in which a number of ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet have been sunk.
Instead, he praised the fleet’s pace of rearmament to date. He claimed 49 warships of various classes have been built in Russian shipyards in the past five years, including nuclear submarines that can be equipped with new Zircon hypersonic missiles.
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