War and Secretive Spending Is Eating Away at Russia’s Budget
- Russia classifies unprecedented one-third of budget spending
- Defense, security spending now second only to social programs
Crowds watch military vehicles and tanks during a Victory Day rehearsal in Moscow in 2020.
Source: Bloomberg
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Russia is keeping an unprecedented one-third of its budget spending out of the public eye, a stark measure of how a year of war against Ukraine has redrawn government finances and economic priorities.
Classified or unspecified expenditure through March 24 has surged to 2.4 trillion rubles ($31 billion), Finance Ministry data show, more than double the level in the same period a year ago, according to Bloomberg Economics’s estimates. Plans set out for 2023 envisaged the budget’s secret share at almost a quarter, Bloomberg calculations show.