The enemies are trying to limit Russia's development, but, thanks to its armed forces, the country can respond harshly to all of them, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the organizing committee "Victory".

According to him, always the same thing happens. As soon as Russia becomes stronger, they find reasons to limit its development.

"Everyone wants to bite us or to bite a piece off us," Putin said. "But those who are going to do it need to know, that we'll knock out their teeth so that they can't bite. It's obvious. And the key to this is the development of our Armed Forces."

According to Putin, Russia's enemies are "afraid" of its "colossal potential."

"146 million people don't seem to be so many compared to those countries where hundreds of millions live, or even a billion, but it is still considered a lot," Putin said.

He added that there are those who dare to say publicly that it is unfair that Russia alone owns all the wealth of a region like Siberia. "It is strange to hear such things, especially in public, but they are being said," Interfax quoted Putin as saying.

At the same time, according to Putin, Russia "is not on the path of militarizing its economy."

According to the estimates of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), last year Russia ranked 4th in the world in terms of public spending on defense, and, in terms of its share in GDP, ahead of all of the top 15 largest economies in the world.

Last year, the Kremlin pledged $61.7 billion to finance the "Russian war machine". Compared to 2019, the military budget grew by 2.5%, but the actual expenditures were 6.6% less than planned.

By nominal size, Russia's military budget was second only to three countries- the United States ($778 billion), China ($252 billion) and India ($72.9 billion).

Compared with the size of the economy, Russia spent more than any of the NATO countries - 4.3% of GDP.

Among the developed countries, only Israel (5.6 per cent of GDP), which is in a ongoing conflict with Palestine and neighbouring Syria and Lebanon, allocates more for military needs.

For comparison: U.S. military spending accounted for 3.7% of GDP last year, China - 1.7% of GDP, India - 2.9% of GDP, Great Britain - 2.2% of GDP, Germany - 1.4% of GDP, France - 2.1% of GDP.

Turkey, which carries out military operations in Libya, Syria and supported Azerbaijan in the war for Nagorno-Karabakh, spent 2.8% of its GDP on defense.

Even Pakistan (4% of GDP) and Iraq (4.1% of GDP) spent less on defense. The average for the top 40 countries in the world,2.4% of GDP, is half that of Russia.

  Putin, Russia

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