From Deutsche Welle:  In the run up to Russia’s election, presidential candidate and sitting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that he will increase military spending, claiming that NATO plans for a missile shield leave Moscow no choice.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed on Monday to modernize Russia’s military in a drive to put it on an equal footing with Western armed forces, saying that Moscow should aim to "overcome any system of missile defense. . . ."

Putin said that he plans to spend 23 trillion rubles ($773 billion, 585 billion euros) in the next decade on 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles, more than 600 combat aircraft, dozens of submarines and other navy vehicles as wells as thousands of armored vehicles. . . .

The Russian prime minister said that although Moscow cannot build a "costly" parallel shield, its strategic nuclear forces as well as its air and space defenses should be capable of defeating NATO’s missile shield. 

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