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Russia plans to dramatically increase its military budget next year and officials in Moscow are anticipating that fighting in Ukraine will continue at least until 2025, according to documents that were apparently leaked from the Kremlin’s Finance Ministry.
Russia’s defense spending is set to surge to about 30% of total public expenditures in 2024, British defense officials said Sunday.
According to the leaked documents, Russian government officials proposed a defense budget next year of 10.8 trillion rubles — about $108 billion. That is equivalent to 6% of Russia’s GDP and a 68% increase over 2023, U.K. military intelligence officials said on social media. Whether the Kremlin’s coffers can sustain the spending pace is another question, as the Russian economy labors under Western economic sanctions and the drain of the military operation in Ukraine.
“It is highly likely that Russia can support this level of defense spending through 2024, but only at the expense of the wider economy,” British officials said. “Full details on Russian defense spending are always classified, but these figures suggest that Russia is preparing for multiple further years of fighting in Ukraine.”
The information follows public comments last week by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu suggesting he was prepared for the conflict to continue into 2025.
“We continue to build up the combat power of the armed forces,” Mr. Shoigu said in a video posted last week by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. “in particular by supplying modern weapons and improving the training of troops, taking into account the experience of the ’special military operation.’”
The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is gambling that Western support for Kyiv will flag long before Russia’s forces run out of funds. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday cited the stopgap spending bill passed by the U.S. Congress over the weekend, which dropped a proposed multi-billion economic and military aid package for Ukraine from the final package in order to secure enough votes for passage.
“Fatigue over this conflict — fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime — will grow in various countries, including the U.S.,” Mr. Peskov predicted in a briefing for reporters in Moscow.
President Biden and top congressional leaders have vowed to pass the Ukraine aid package in a standalone vote in the coming weeks.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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