Russian arms exports rose to $ 4 billion in 2000

Russian arms exports rose last year to four-billion-dollars, the highest figure for a decade. The deputy head of Russia's main state-run weapons export company Rosoboroneksport, Viktor Komardin, said that one-third of the total sales were with India - Russia's largest military trading partner. Mr Komardin is currently in India to finalise another one-billion-dollar contract, which will include the sale of an estimated three-hundred T-90 tanks. Mr Komardin said he was also hoping to negotiate the sale to India of a Russian aircraft carrier equipped with jet fighters, for an estimated two-billion dollars, BBC reports. Russia is the world's fourth-largest arms trader , after United States, Britain and France, but last year's total of four-billion-dollars is still only a fraction of the amount of arms exported by the Soviet Union in the nineteen eighties.