"Putin is preparing for an eternal war": spending on the military-industrial complex and the army in Russia will be a record since the Soviet era
Such military spending has never been seen in the entire modern history of Russia
The share of military spending in Russia's 2024 budget will be the highest since the last years of the Soviet Union, according to estimates by The Moscow Times.
In particular, the Russian government intends to spend 10.8 trillion rubles on national defense next year, which is 70% more than in the current year (6.8 trillion); 2.3 times more than in 2022 (4.7 trillion), and three times higher than in pre-war 2021 (3.5 trillion).
As a result, for the first time, every third ruble spent by the budget in Russia will go to the army and factories of the military-industrial complex (29.5%).
For comparison, the current year's budget initially included only 19% of defense spending (5 trillion rubles out of 26.1 trillion); in the first year of the war with Ukraine, this share was 17% (4.7 trillion rubles out of 27.8 trillion).
In the third year of the invasion, which has made Russia the world record holder for the number of sanctions, the budgetary "bill" for the war will double and exceed $200 billion, an amount comparable to the GDP of countries such as Greece or Hungary.
"Such military spending has never been seen in the entire modern history of Russia," Alexandra Prokopenko, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowed Chair in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Bloomberg.
The USSR spent one-third of its defense budget in its last years. For example, in the 1990 budget, 71 billion rubles out of 241.3 billion, or 29.4%, were allocated for "military purposes."
If we add the costs of security forces, including the police, the Russian Guard, and the FSIN system, the costs of "national defense" and "national security" will amount to almost 40% of the budget.
"This shows that the Kremlin has set its priorities – and the main priority is war. Putin is preparing for an eternal war, and war has become critical for the regime and the economy," Prokopenko says.
Background. As reported, shopping centers are being closed in Izhevsk, Russia, and drone production is being launched in their place.
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