MOSCOW: Russia plans to boost its defence budget by almost 30 per cent next year as it diverts resources to its Ukraine offensive, spending more on the military than welfare and education combined, a draft budget showed on Monday (Sep 30).
Moscow had already ramped up military spending to levels not seen since the Soviet Union era, pumping out missiles and drones to fire on Ukraine and paying lucrative salaries to its hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting on the front lines.
The latest planned increase in spending will take Russia’s defence budget to 13.5 trillion rubles (US$145 billion) in 2025, a document published on the parliamentary website showed, up from 10.4 trillion in 2024.
That figure does not include some other resources being directed to the military campaign, such as spending that Russia labels as “domestic security” and some outlays classified as top secret.
Combined spending on defence and security will account for around 40 per cent of Russia’s total government spending, seen at 41.5 trillion rubles in 2025.
Before sending the draft budget to the Russian parliament, Moscow trumpeted an increase in investment and social welfare alongside higher military outlays.
The “top priority” of the budget was to be “social support for citizens”, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told a televised government meeting on Sep 24.
“The second is the provision of expenditures on defence and security, providing the resources for the special military operation and support for families of those participating in the special military operation,” he added, using Russia’s official language for its Ukraine offensive.
But the draft budget suggests that military spending has crowded out spending on other areas of the economy.
Planned spending on “national defence” is more than twice that allocated to areas Moscow labels as “social policy”.
Ukraine has also been forced to accelerate its own military spending as it battles the Russian offensive.
Kyiv will allocate more than 60 per cent of the country’s entire budget to defence and security next year.
But Russia’s US$145-billion defence budget dwarfs Ukraine’s at US$54 billion, with Kyiv reliant on Western military and financial aid to continue fighting.
