Russia will increase its military spending by almost 30% next year, according to a draft budget published Monday.
The 2025 budget will take Russia’s military spending up to $145 billion, about $32 billion more than was budgeted for this year’s campaign and more military dollars than Russia has spent since the Soviet Union era.
The Russian assault on Ukraine, Europe’s largest conflict since World War II, has drained the resources of both countries.
Ukraine's $54 billion military budget for next year is far short of Russia’s military allotment. Ukraine has been able to fight its bigger and better-equipped neighbor only because Ukraine has received money and equipment from its Western allies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Monday that the situation at the front line of Russian’s war on Ukraine was “very challenging.” The president said, “Everything that can be done this fall, everything we can achieve, we must achieve.”
Zelenskyy also said, “The power of weapons and the power of diplomacy are always effective when working together.” He said Ukraine was “expecting concrete actions from our partners to strengthen our strategy ... our strength lies in the fact that the free world is defending itself.”
Also Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the second anniversary of the annexation of four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The move was roundly denounced in the West as a sham.
Ukraine’s military said Monday that it shot down 67 of 73 Russian aerial drones launched in overnight attacks targeting areas across Ukraine.
In addition to the drones, Ukraine’s air defenses shot down one of three Russia missiles.
The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the Ukrainian air force said.
Officials in Dnipropetrovsk said Monday that drone and artillery attacks had damaged at least 10 homes.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said air alerts were active in the Ukrainian capital for five hours but that air defenses intercepted all attacks directed at Kyiv.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that it had destroyed two Ukrainian aerial drones, both over the Belgorod region that sits along the Russia-Ukraine border.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, Belgorod’s governor, reported one person killed and another injured in the Ukrainian attacks.
Some information for this story came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
