Putin asks the Russian parliament to approve a new war budget

“ Vyou are called to pay special attention to issues of state importance, such as strengthening the defense of the country, and to do everything for our victory, supporting the defenders of the homeland and their families”, Putin said, in the gallery of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament.

The Russian head of state, who seldom goes to the Duma – the last time was in 2020 – opened the ninth legislature, where the Kremlin party, in the purest style of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, controls 349 out of 450 seats, although the opposition and independent experts consider that parliament has no legitimacy due to the many irregularities detected in the recent elections.

According to leaks to the independent and international press, the Russian Government will once again increase defence spending in the next three years to 50 billion rubles (about EUR 529 billion).

If the budget project receives Duma support, Russia will spend 17.1 billion rubles (more than EUR 176 billion) next year plus 27% more than initially foreseen: 13.5 billion rubles (about EUR 140 billion).

And while it is more than a third higher than expected for 2026 (€12.1 billion or €127.6 billion), experts ensure that expenditure will greatly exceed this in the second half of the year.

In any case, on paper is the highest value since the beginning of the war, in February 2022, where Russia spent around 40% of the state budget on each exercise in defense.

As a consequence, it will reduce investment in health and education, but also in the construction of roads and infrastructure, as well as subsidies for the agricultural sector.

In addition, with the aim of reducing the public deficit — to 3.2% in 2026, twice as expected — the government has already proposed raising taxes, an unpopular measure presented shortly after the elections.

After welcoming the veteran war MPs — about 10% of the total — and the elected for the first time in the four annexed Ukrainian regions, Putin focused his speech on the Duma in the state budget for the fifth year of war.

“The important thing is not to make mistakes. The errors, especially now, are absolutely unacceptable,” he stressed, adding that Russia “will not do like others” — referring to Ukraine — and going out into the world “to beg”, which he considered “humiliating”.

“ Secondly, no one will give us anything, we know that. And thirdly, and most importantly, we do not need this”, he said.

In his opinion, the state budget for 2027 should be “realistic and balanced” and maintain macroeconomic stability, ensuring that all social programmes can be fulfilled.

Despite being favorable to the resumption of peace negotiations following the recent visit of the White House envoys to Moscow and Kiev, Putin changed his mind after the largest Ukrainian attack on Moscow on September 20, in the middle of the electoral period.

Since then, Moscow has launched an unbroken campaign of bombing Kiev, and all indications are that the war will continue and complete its fifth anniversary in February, since the Russian Army has only achieved marginal advances in the Donbass, in eastern Ukrainian territory, where it has suffered in recent hard weeks setbacks in Donetsk.