Russia plans to increase its defense budget to $142 billion

The Russian government plans to increase the defense budget to $142 billion in 2025 from $115 billion planned for this year. That is, next year the Russian Federation will spend 6.2% of the gross domestic product (GDP) on the war.

This is written by Bloomberg, which got acquainted with the draft three-year budget.

Bloomberg calculations show that the Russian Federation also plans a slight decrease in these costs over the next two years — to 5.6% of GDP in 2026 and to 5.1% in 2027.

Spending on national defense and internal security will account for almost 40% of Russiaʼs total budget payments in 2025. This outweighs the combined allocations for education, health care, social policy and the economy.

In addition, secretive spending is projected to grow to $138 billion, remaining at nearly 30% of total budget spending. The Kremlin continues to increase spending on a full-scale war, extending it into its third year.

For comparison: Poland plans to increase its defense budget to 5% of GDP ($49.3 billion) in 2025, which will be a record for the country. As of 2024, the NATO leaders in terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP are Poland (4.12%), Estonia (3.43%), the United States (3.38%), Latvia (3.15%), Greece (3.08%). In total, the US budgeted $886 billion for the defense budget in 2024.

• In the project of the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025, 2.2 trillion hryvnias (approximately $53 billion) were laid down, which is 26.3% of the countryʼs projected GDP.