From Sputnik:  The Russian Defense Ministry’s budget cuts will amount to 5 percent instead of the previously reported 10 percent and will not affect the state armament and social programs, Deputy Defense Minister Tatiana Shevtsova said on Saturday. …

The 2016 military spending in the country was expected to amount to 3.14 trillion rubles ($43.6 billion at the current exchange rate) or 4 percent of GDP….

In 2015, the Russian military budget was reduced by nearly 4 percent.

From Reuters:  The 5 percent cut, if approved by Putin, would be the biggest reduction in defense spending since he took office in 2000….

The cut represents a victory for the finance ministry, which has said Russia can no longer afford the multi-billion-dollar revamp of the armed forces and called for a 10 percent spending reduction across ministries.

The Russian economy shrank by 3.7 percent last year and is expected to decline by another 1 percent this year.

Image: Russian military jets, May 9, 2010 (photo: Dmitry Terekhov)