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ISW: Putin signs Russia’s largest national budget

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ISW: Putin signs Russia’s largest national budget
A pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik shows Putin in Moscow on Nov. 14, 2023. (Gavriil GRIGOROV / POOL / AFP) 

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a 2024 federal budget and planned budgets for the two following years on Nov. 27, reportedly devoting a record amount to defense.

The 2024 federal budget accounts for 36.66 trillion rubles ($412.5 billion) in state expenses and a budget deficit of 1.6 trillion rubles ($9.5 billion), the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its latest update.

Following approval of the budget by the lower house of parliament, Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that it was specifically designed to allocate funds for the military and address the consequences of international sanctions imposed when Russia deployed troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The federal budget does not account for the entirety of Russian defense spending, the ISW said, as the Kremlin has relied on regional budgets and private business entities to augment funding for the ongoing war effort.

A portion of the Russian budget remains undisclosed, as Moscow aims to keep its military intentions hidden and evade scrutiny around its activities in Ukraine.

Independent business journalists Farida Rustamova and Maksim Tovkaylo said earlier this month that approximately 39% of the total federal spending in 2024 (14 trillion rubles or $157.5 billion) will be allocated to defense and law enforcement.

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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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