Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine, now in its third year, is costing Russian taxpayers more and more.
In the first half of 2024, a record 5.3 trillion rubles were spent from the Russian federal budget on defense items. The Moscow Times writes about this on Friday, September 13, citing calculations based on data from the Electronic Budget system by Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security Studies.
Thus, compared to the first half of 2023, Russian military spending increased by 36%, or 1.4 trillion rubles.
“On average, the government spends 203 billion rubles a week, 29 billion rubles a day, or 1.2 billion rubles an hour on maintaining the army and buying weapons, according to Kluge’s calculations,” the publication pointed out. .
As a result, in six months, the military machine “ate” about one and a half annual budget of the program to support the national economy (3.89 trillion rubles), more than three annual budgets of the entire system of higher education in country ( 1.546 trillion rubles), 18 annual budgets of the national project “Health Care” (290 billion rubles) and more than 90 annual budgets of a generally poor region – such as, for example, the Republic of Tiwa (56 billion rubles ).
“Particularly sharp,” said Kluge, “secret costs” jumped, mainly in the purchase of weapons for the front. They are about 1 trillion rubles per quarter. In the open part of the budget, funding for state defense orders increased by 54% compared to last year and by 126% compared to 2022.
The costs of military payments, including the massive recruitment of “volunteers” and contract soldiers in which the Kremlin pays losses at the front, have increased by 25% compared to last year and by 175% compared to 2022 .
“The costs of international military-technical cooperation have increased, which may include financing the purchase of ammunition and missiles from Iran and the DPRK,” Kluge said.
According to his estimates, almost 120 billion rubles were spent on it from the budget in the first quarter and more than 150 billion in the second.
Kluge estimates that by the end of the year, the Kremlin’s military spending could reach 13.3 trillion rubles, or 7-8% of GDP, which corresponds to the level of military dictatorships in Africa (8.2% of GDP in Algeria, 6.3% of GDP in South Sudan).
The Polish government has approved a draft budget for next year with record defense spending: nearly 187 billion zlotys (about $48 billion).
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.