Russia Keeps the Money Rolling in for Putin’s War in Ukraine
- Draft budget shows defense spending at 6.2% of GDP next year
- Government sees only small fall in 2026, 2027 defense budgets
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Russia plans to maintain defense spending at an historic high in 2025 and sees only slight declines in the following two years as President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine shows no sign of ending.
Draft three-year budget proposals seen by Bloomberg News show the government intends to increase defense spending to 13.2 trillion rubles ($142 billion) in 2025 from 10.4 trillion rubles projected for this year, putting it at 6.2% of gross domestic product. Military expenditure is planned to decline to 5.6% of GDP in 2026 and 5.1% in 2027, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the draft data.