2023 Annual Review Since the beginning of this century, especially after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Russia, which was jointly sanctioned by Western countries, has experienced a sharp decline in its economy since then, and even fell out of the world's top ten economies for a time. It can be said that due to economic reasons in recent years, Russia's military spending has been pitifully small, hovering around $50 billion.
After all, Russia is known as the world's second military power after the United States, and its navy, land, and air force are huge, and it is difficult to maintain the expenditure of Russia's entire army with only a few tens of billions of dollars.
It is precisely because of the stretch of Russia's military spending that the Russian Navy has not had enough money to repair even the old sea boats in recent years, and its combat effectiveness can be imagined. However, all this has changed dramatically after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war. According to foreign media reports, in 2022, Russia's military spending will increase to $85.6 billion due to the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and $86 billion in 2023!It is even expected to increase to $120 billion in 2024!
On November 27, Russia's ** Putin signed the 2024 federal budget bill, officially approving a significant increase in military spending. According to reports, Russia's federal budget expenditure in 2024 will be about 3666 trillion rubles, of which defense spending increased to 108 trillion rubles!If converted into dollars, it is nearly $120 billion, an increase of nearly 70% from 2023!
What does this mean?It means that Russia will become the third largest military spender in the world, after China and the United States!Compared with tens of billions of dollars in military spending a few years ago, the military spending of the Russian army in 2024 will be more than doubled!This makes it possible for many of Russia's best equipment to be better repaired and improved in the future, and its combat effectiveness will be greatly improved!
For example, the Tu-160 strategic bomber will continue to be improved, the number of Russian nuclear submarines may increase, the Russian surface ships may have new faces, and Russia's only half-scrap aircraft carrier, the Kuznetsov, is likely to be repaired and relaunched.
However, is Russia capable of supporting such a huge military expenditure at the moment?Or is it the so-called slapping a swollen face and becoming fat?According to the data on Russia's economic aggregate in 2022, Russia's economic aggregate in that year was 224 trillion US dollars, ranking eighth in the world, back to the world's top ten economies. And I have the impression that this is the first time that Russia's GDP has returned to more than 2 trillion US dollars after being jointly sanctioned by Western countries in 2014.
Although such a proportion of military spending is not low, it is at least within Russia's ability to bear, and it is even easy, otherwise Russia would not have increased its military spending so much with such a big wave. And according to the situation that Russia is in today, it is necessary to increase military spending, after all, the Russian-Ukrainian war is still ongoing, and no one knows when it will end in the future.