Russia seeks to quadruple arms sales

A top Russian official has pointed to Moscow’s efforts to quadruple its annual weapons sales to over 50 billion dollars by 2020 in a battle to capture the top global arms exporter spot from its American rival.

“Not counting inflation, I think we could reach USD50 billion [in arms exports] annually by 2020,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Thursday as cited in a report by Moscow-based RIA, Novosti.

“It is four times the current amount,” the Russian defense industry chief further added.

Rogozin also expressed confidence about Russia’s maintenance of its second place ranking on the list of the world’s top weapon exporters, while vowing to narrow the gap with the world’s most aggressive and biggest seller of weapons in the international arms market, the United States.

The American arms industry accounted for the sale of USD69.1 billion worth of weaponry to its international customers, mostly its client states in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in 2012, according to the US Defense Department.

Russia, meanwhile, ranked a distant second among the world’s top arms exporters in 2012 with reported sale of USD 15.2 billion to its international customers of nearly 80 countries.

According to the report, Moscow also ranked the world’s second-largest weapon exporter in 2011 with an estimated sale of USD13.2 billion worth of arms.

Russia, the report notes, added Afghanistan, Ghana, Oman and Tanzania to its growing list of arms purchasers across the globe.

The United Nations has reportedly raised concerns on numerous occasions about the growing sale of arms in international markets, blaming the weapon sales to massive human rights violations and atrocities in the world.