Russian lawmakers give final nod on record military funding boost
Al Jazeera
Massive increase in spending builds on last year’s record, as Moscow maintains war on Ukraine, confrontation with West.
Lawmakers in Russia’s upper house have given final parliamentary approval to a plan to boost military spending by almost 30 percent next year.
The Federation Council on Wednesday passed the 2025 budget, which builds spending on defence and security to levels not seen since the Soviet era. The boost, which follows a similar move for 2024, comes as Moscow pursues its war in Ukraine and steps up its rhetoric against Western and their supply of weapons to Kyiv.
The budget earmarks a record 13.5 trillion rubles (about $125bn) in spending on “national defence”. That is about 3 trillion rubles (about $26.6bn) more than was apportioned for this year, which itself represented a post-Cold War record for being Russia’s largest military spending.
The outlay on defence in 2025 is planned to exceed the spending planned for welfare and education combined.
In addition, the headline spending figure does not include resources for “domestic security” and some other categories classified as top secret.
