Russia is keeping an unprecedented one-third of its budget spending out of the public eye, a stark measure of how a year of war against Ukraine has redrawn government finances and economic priorities.
Classified or unspecified expenditure through March 24 has surged to 2.4 trillion rubles , Finance Ministry data show, more than double the level in the same period a year ago, according to Bloomberg Economics’s estimates. Plans set out for 2023 envisaged the budget’s secret share at almost a quarter, Bloomberg calculations show.
The secrecy around the single biggest-ticket item speaks to the scale of the fiscal commitment to the war effort that Putin promised will have “no limitations.” Clandestine spending previously peaked around 21% in 2015, a year after Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. A snapshot of Russia’s fiscal performance is available on the so-called “joint budget system portal” maintained by the Finance Ministry and the Treasury. The figures capture daily changes in the execution of public spending—even as increasingly more money is no longer subject to public scrutiny.
But the data indicate the biggest increase went toward defense spending, followed by transfers to the regions. The categories of education and health-care show slight gains compared to the previous year, according to the figures, while spending on the economy and social programs remains in line over the same period.
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