KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved budget plans, boosting military spending to record levels for 2025, as Moscow tries to gain the upper hand in the war in Ukraine.
About 32.5% of the budget published on a government website on Sunday has been allocated to national defense, amounting to 13.5 trillion rubles (more than $145 billion), up from a reported 28.3% this year .
Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament, the Duma and the Federation Council had already approved the plans in the past ten days.
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Russia’s war against Ukraine, which began in February 2022, is Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and has drained the resources of both sides.
Kiev has received billions of dollars in aid from its Western allies, but Russian forces are larger and better equipped, and in recent months the Russian military has gradually pushed Ukrainian forces back in eastern areas.
On the ground in Ukraine, three people were killed in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone hit a minibus on Sunday morning, Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Seven others were injured in the attack.
Meanwhile, the number of people injured in the rocket attack on Dnipro in central Ukraine has risen to 24, of which seven are in serious condition, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Four people were killed in the attack.
Moscow sent 78 drones to Ukraine overnight and Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 32 drones were destroyed during the night strikes. Another 45 drones went ‘lost’ over various areas, probably electronically jammed.
In Russia, a child was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional governor Alexander Bogomaz.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down in four regions of western Russia on Sunday night: 20 over the Bryansk region, seven over the Kaluga region and one over the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
