Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a record defense budget. Almost three years after the war in Ukraine, this budget was approved for a third of the total government spending.
The 2025 budget released on Sunday (Dec 3) local time allocates about $126 billion (13.5 trillion roubles) for national defense, which is 32.5 percent of government spending.
This year’s defense budget is about $28 billion (three trillion rubles) higher than the previous record high. Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament approved the budget.

Russia has greatly increased its military spending over the past two years. To keep the environment under control, the country’s central bank raised interest rates to 21 percent last October, the highest in decades.
Russia’s war in Ukraine is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. Moscow is already making gains in key areas of the front line. At the same time fighting off counterattacks in the Kursk region.

Ukraine lags behind in both war material and manpower, despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Western allies. Recently, the US and some Western countries allowed Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. Also the US and Germany sent new military equipment.