MOSCOW. Jan 19 (Interfax) - Russia should not be trying to catch up with the United states in terms of armed forces figures by increasing its defense spending, said former finance minister Alexei Kudrin.
"I think there is a military solution: to maintain nuclear parity and defensive capability. We cannot have the same army as in the U.S.," Kudrin said on the Gaidar Forum in Moscow on Thursday.
"This year our government defense contracts will amount to approximately $77 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. The U.S. has over $600 billion. This is really incomparable," he said.
Each year the U.S. sets aside $150 billion separately in its budget for military operations in local conflict zones, he said.
"There (in the U.S.) the army is mainly contract-based," Kudrin said.
"The money has already been planned and what is being proposed is effectively to build a somewhat old-style army fulfilling somewhat old missions," Kudrin said about the Russian army reform.
"The question here is not about who is more patriotic and whether we need the army. We do need the army, we do need the parity, we do need sovereignty. And we can keep it. The question is in the rationality and efficiency of the army proper, its contractual component, this army numbers," Kudrin said.
"For defense, we do not need such numbers - one million, especially of those on a contract basis, when 18-year-old young men will be replaced by experienced contract soldiers. We do not need a million of such contract soldiers," Kudrin said.