Corrupt officials are rubbing their hands: what does an increase in Russia's defense budget mean?

The occupiers increased spending on the military-industrial complex / Collage 24 Channel / Getty Images

The war against Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin continues to reshape the Russian economy. The Kremlin head signed the law on the budget of the aggressor country for 2024–2026.

Next year, almost a third of all expenses will be directed to maintaining the army and the military-industrial complex. Military expert Oleg Zhdanov told Channel 24 that Russian corrupt officials are already at the ready and are rubbing their hands.

Russia can repeat the fate of the USSR

Putin decided that the share of military spending in the Russian budget, the total size of which will be 36.66 trillion rubles, will reach 29.5%.

Corrupt officials, looking at macro budget indicators, understand that the field for theft will be simply immense. There is no doubt about this,” Zhdanov explained.

Let us remember that the USSR spent a third of its budget on defense in the last years of its existence. In 1990, 71 billion rubles or 29.4% were allocated for military purposes. However, the economy could not withstand the military invasion and as a result the Soviet Union collapsed.

“Precisely for economic reasons. It actually went bankrupt, which was the reason for its collapse,” Zhdanov said.

Zhdanov explained what increased spending on Russian defense means: watch video

What plans do the occupiers have?

According to Oleg Zhdanov, there is a strong gap between the desire of Russians to increase spending on the army and their real capabilities. The occupiers are counting on such a budget to run, for example, the military-industrial complex in 4 shifts.

Today, without import substitution, which mostly happened on paper, they will not be able to develop it to such potential,” the military expert emphasized.

On the one hand, the Russians are scaring the world that they will “produce tanks like matchboxes.”

On the other hand, in reality everything may turn out differently – the presence of piles of money does not mean that factories will begin to produce an insane amount of the latest weapons tomorrow. Since the Russians will have problems even with the restoration of weapons that the enemy is now removing from storage.

Putin approved the Russian budget for 2024–2026

• Under the “national defense” item, the Russian budget will spend 10.775 trillion rubles – 70% more than in 2023 (6.8 trillion rubles), 2.3 times more than in 2022 (4.7 trillion rubles), and three times higher than the pre-war 2021 indicators (3.5 trillion rubles).
• In addition, Russia will spend 3.338 trillion rubles on the budget of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Guard, special services and the FSIN system. In total, almost 40% of the budget will be spent on security forces. It can already be said that Russia’s financial scale speaks of its preparation for many years of war in Ukraine.
• At the same time, the aggressor country will cut costs to support the national economy and small businesses, and funding for education and medicine will be frozen.
• However, funding for state propaganda will remain at a record level – 121.3 billion rubles.
• Bloomberg previously wrote that Russian defense spending will amount to 6% of the country's GDP in 2024 versus 3.9% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2021, according to the draft budget plans, which the publication reviewed.