Russia hikes military spending to record levels as defence outgoings close to a third of entire budget
1 December 2024, 11:24 | Updated: 1 December 2024, 11:35
Vladimir Putin has signed off record amounts of defence spending for Russia.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The Kremlin has signed off new budget plans, raising military spending to record levels for 2025 - as they push to win the Ukraine war.
Some 33% of their budget has been set aside for defence, according to a budget posted on the government website.
This will amount to 3.5 trillion rubles (nearly £26 billion), which is up 28.3% compared to their previous defence spending.
Officials in both houses of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council and the State Duma have approved the plan.
This comes as Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that he was prepared to end the "hot phase" of the Ukraine war in exchange for NATO protection.
Russia's war on Ukraine, which started in February 2022, is Europe's biggest conflict since the Second World War and has drained the resources of both sides.
Kyiv has been getting billions of dollars in help from its Western allies, but Russia's forces are bigger and better equipped, and in recent months the Russian army has gradually been pushing Ukrainian troops back in eastern areas.
On the ground in Ukraine, three people died in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone struck a minibus on Sunday morning, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Seven others were injured in the attack.
Meanwhile, the number of people injured in a missile strike in Dnipro in central Ukraine on Saturday rose to 24, with seven in a serious condition, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Four people were killed in the attack.
The 'advent of Trump changes everything' in terms of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal
Moscow sent 78 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said.
According to Ukraine's air force, 32 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 45 were "lost" over various areas, probably due to being electronically jammed.
In Russia, a child was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional governor Alexander Bogomaz.
Russia's Defence Ministry said 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight into Sunday in four regions of western Russia - 20 over the Bryansk region, seven over the Kaluga region, and one each over the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
Natasha Devon speaks to defence analyst Simon Diggins OBE about the conflict in Ukraine
It comes after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrei Sybiha urged NATO to admit Ukraine into the alliance.
Mr Sybiha, in a letter seen by Reuters, said: "With a clear understanding that Ukraine's membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war."
And speaking on Friday to Sky News, Mr Zelenskyy appeared to accept that occupied eastern parts of the country would not be included in a ceasefire deal with Russia.
Mr Zelenskyy said a ceasefire was necessary to "guarantee that Putin will not come back" and attempt to take more of Ukraine's territory.
A former NATO official told LBC that Mr Zelenskyy would be "crazy" not to build up Ukraine's defences in the event of any ceasefire.
Mark Laity told LBC's Matthew Wright said: "We need to recognise... if you just have a ceasefire in place, an armistice, and you do not then enable Ukraine to defend itself properly and build up its forces, then there will be a third invasion.
"So what he's saying is, in effect, I will concede territory, but I need then to be able to defend what I have left. And the Russian point of view is they would regard this as an interregnum, so they would maybe take the armistice.
"But what they're demanding is in effect, a demilitarised Ukraine, in effect, setting itself up for the next piece of territory they take, and then the total overcoming, so that the two go together.
"Ukraine would be crazy to have an armistice unless it can build up its forces and defend itself for the next attack".
