Soviet Defense Budget Incomplete, Marshal Says

The Soviet armed forces chief of staff, implicitly acknowledging that not all military costs were made public, said Saturday that the country’s defense budget omitted the cost of arms procurements.

Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev told a news conference that the appropriation figure announced annually to the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) covered only salaries, “costs linked to combat preparations, the use and repair of equipment, and other needs.”

But, he added, “It does not include arms procurements.”

Western military specialists have for years insisted that the officially declared military budget figure was far lower than actual costs involved in equipping and running the Soviet armed forces.

The official ruble figure of 20.2 billion ($33.9 billion) declared for 1988 showed little change on the total declared for almost two decades.

The 1988 appropriation as approved by the Supreme Soviet was only 5% of the government’s overall planned spending.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a similar acknowledgement, said recently it would take two or three more years before it was possible to make genuine comparisons between the Soviet and U.S. defense budgets.

At Saturday’s news conference, Akhromeyev said a total budget figure could be published in two or three years, when Soviet price reforms were completed.

At that point, he said, “the Soviet Union will provide data including everything that enters into the heading of military spending, in conformity with international standards.”