Russia doubles war spending to a third of its budget- Reuters
By mid-2023, Russia will have spent the entire military budget approved for the year and will have to double its military spending to RUB 9.7 trillion, or USD 102 billion, Reuters reports, citing a classified government document.
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USD 102 billion is more than the entire state budget of Ukraine for this year, which is at a historically high level due to the full-scale war.
In the first half of 2023, Russia spent 12 percent, or RUB 600 billion, more on defence than the RUB 4.98 trillion (USD 54 billion) it had originally targeted for 2023.
Defence spending in the first six months of 2023 amounted to RUB 5.59 trillion, 37.3 percent of a total RUB 14.97 trillion spent in the period and 19.2 percent on defence in the first six months of all initially planned budget expenditure for 2023 as a whole.
Based on the document cited by Reuters, 97.1 percent of the extra budget expenditures in Russia was directed to the defence sector.
The document provided a new estimate for annual defence spending of RUB 9.7 trillion, one third of the total spending target of RUB 29.05 trillion, which would be the highest share in at least the last decade.
After launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has classified a third of federal budget expenditures.
At the same time, its commodity revenues are falling rapidly, while spending on war and security forces is growing at a record pace.
