Eurasia Daily Monitor:
In early December, Russian news sources reported that further development work on the Barguzin railroad combat complex (BZhRK), a train armed with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), was being terminated. Apparently, the nuclear missile train had not been added to the State Armaments Program (GPV) to 2027 for financial reasons (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 2).
The ongoing crisis in the Russian economy has now also been affecting defense spending. First due to the unstable economic situation, the adoption of the next GPV was moved back from 2015 to 2017. Second, the Ministry of Defense has reduced its GPV budget requests from 55 trillion to 19 trillion rubles ($928 billion to $290 billion) (TV Zvezda, November 21), the third such reduction so far. Unlike the BZhRK, the Sarmat and Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missiles (see EDM, October 25), the development of which began simultaneously with the Barguzin, are still included within the GPV.
