28 October 2016, 12:46 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia's rearmament plans should be carried out efficiently using funds allocated from the state budget, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
"Our plans should certainly be implemented. The question arises: through what? Certainly through optimization, and more careful use of allocated state resources to focus attention on the most important promising areas of our work," Putin said while opening a series of meetings with defense industry top officials.
"I'd like to note that the approved plans on the delivery of modern weapons and equipment are being steadily implemented," the Russian president added.
Russia is in the process of implementing a large-scale rearmament program. It was announced in 2010, with a goal of modernizing 70 percent of the country's military hardware by 2020. The cost of the modernization program is estimated at about 20 trillion rubles (over $300 billion).
