Military expert Frolov: SIPRI data on the fall in Russian arms sales are inaccurate , which speaks of another drop in Russian arms sales, is inaccurate and based on dubious data. The information of the Swedish researchers in a commentary to Izvestia was denied by military expert Andrei Frolov.
According to him, the Russian data indicate a completely different dynamics, the Russian officials in charge of military-technical cooperation cite different statistics. There is no drop in it, the number of contracts remains stable.
Frolov recalled that SIPRI experts may not know about new contracts and may not have accurate data on supplies. Separately, on their conscience, there is an assessment of the cost of a particular technique. Thus, the expert emphasized, the institute's methodology is speculative and has little to do with reality.
According to the organization's estimates, published on December 6, in 2020, sales of Russian arms fell to 26.4 billion (minus 6.5 percent compared to 2019). Thus, the Almaz-Antey concern lost 31 percent over the year, and the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) – 11 percent.
The report takes into account data from the world's 100 largest defense companies, including nine Russian ones. According to SIPRI, the total volume of sales in the world of arms and military services in 2020 amounted to 531 billion dollars, of which 285 billion (54 percent) accounted for the United States.