President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia was looking to cut its military expenditure from next year, contrasting that with NATO’s plan to ramp up defence spending over the next decade.
NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5% of gross domestic product in the next 10 years, citing what they called the long-term threat posed by Russia and the need to strengthen civil and military resilience.
In his first reaction to that move, Putin told a press conference in Minsk that the NATO spending would go on “purchases from the USA and on supporting their military-industrial complex”, and this was NATO’s business, not Russia’s.
“But now here is the most important thing. We are planning to reduce defence spending. For us, next year and the year after, over the next three-year period, we are planning forRussia is seeing a sharp slowdown in economic growth as the budget comes under pressure from falling energy revenues and the central bank is trying to bring down inflation.
Russia hiked state spending on national defence by a quarter in 2025 to 6.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest level since the Cold War. Defence spending accounts for 32% of total 2025 federal budget expenditure.
Defence plants have been working round-the-clock for the past several years, and the state has spent heavily on bonuses to attract soldiers to sign up and on compensation for the families of those who are killed.
Putin acknowledged that Russia had paid for the military spending increase with higher
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