Russia to loan Chavez $1 billion for arms

Russia Today reports:

Russia will give Venezuela a credit for $US 1 billion, a Kremlin source said to RIA Novosti news agency. The money will give a boost to the military co-operation between the two countries.

…

Venezuela has become a major buyer of Russian military hardware recently. Caracas has purchased 100,000 AK-103 assault rifles along with 40 Su-30MK2 jet fighters and about 50 combat helicopters, says Interfax-military news agency. On the future shopping list are 20 Tor-M1 air defence systems and three or more submarines.

The Russian defense budget for 2009 is $46 billion. So this loan is worth 2.17% of annual Russian defense spending. No small amount!

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Steve Sep 27th 2008 misc Tags: , , , One Comment

One Response to “Russia to loan Chavez $1 billion for arms”

  1. Renegadeon 01 Oct 2008 at 4:22 am link comment

    As far as I know Venezuela only had 25 SU-30mk2 so they bought even more or what? And what kind of submarines are they going to buy?

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