Fatshimetrie – Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a record defense budget, allocating a staggering third of total government spending as the war in Ukraine drains resources on both sides, nearly three years into the conflict.
The 2025 defense budget, released Sunday, earmarks about $126 billion (13.5 trillion rubles) for national defense, accounting for 32.5 percent of government spending.
This defense budget is nearly $28 billion (3 trillion rubles) above the previous record set this year.
For 2026 and 2027, the new three-year budget calls for a slight reduction in military spending. Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament approved the budget.
The war in Ukraine is the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. Moscow is now making gains at strategic points along the front lines and is waging a counteroffensive in the Kursk region, the site of kyiv’s only major military success this year.
However, the slow, grinding war — often referred to as a war of attrition, in which both sides seek to wear each other down — is draining both countries’ resources.
Ukraine is often weak, both in terms of equipment and manpower, despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from its Western allies, including more than half a billion dollars in new military equipment pledged by Germany on Monday.
It remains to be seen how much more aid will come from the United States once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Meanwhile, Russia has more weapons, more munitions, and more personnel — but the strain on its economy and population continues to grow.
Russia has dramatically increased its military spending over the past two years, and its economy is showing signs of overheating: inflation is high and businesses are facing labor shortages. In an attempt to control the situation, the Russian central bank raised interest rates to 21% in October, the highest in decades.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to receive significant military aid from its allies.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a key supporter of Ukraine, announced more than €650 million ($684 million) in military equipment for Ukraine on Monday, to be delivered in December.
While Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, it is suffering heavy losses on the battlefield, and recruiting new troops is already problematic—the last time the Russian military introduced partial mobilization, hundreds of thousands of men fled the country.
Recently, North Korea has sent a surge of troops to help Russia fight on the front lines — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in November that about 11,000 North Korean troops were in Kursk.
Some of Russia’s weaponry also comes from North Korea, accounting for nearly a third of the ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine this year, according to Ukrainian defense officials and CNN’s tally of attacks.
North Korean troops could help Russia’s efforts for a while — but the material losses could be harder to make up for.