Russia fact of the day

Russian military spending fell by a fifth last year, its first decline in nearly two decades, with tighter purse-strings likely to affect Moscow’s military activity ahead, a report by defense think-tank SIPRI showed on Wednesday.

Here is the full story, and for the pointer I thank J.  Oh, and there is this:

Russia dropped to fourth place in the ranking of the world’s biggest military spenders, overtaken by Saudi Arabia.