Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has been quite successful in its efforts to match the status of a major weapons exporter. In 2017 the export of Russian military hardware went up for a third year running to above $15 billion, TASS reported.

"Russia matches high standards and confirms its status of one of the leading providers on the world weapons market," he said at a meeting of the commission on military-technical cooperation. "The export of military hardware has grown for a third year in a row to more than $15 billion."

Putin also declared that the value of weapons export contracts signed last year doubled to $16 billion. 

"The scope of our military-technical cooperation keeps growing in geographic terms steadily. The number of partners has already exceeded one hundred countries," Putin said. "At the end of last year the amount of contracts signed nearly doubled to $16 billion, which took the overall value of orders for Russian weapons and equipment received to more than $45 billion," the president said.

"This means that Russia’s military-industrial complex has enough orders for the supply of cutting-edge and next-generation defense systems for several years to come," Putin said.