Nearly 40% of Russian public spending on defence – UK defence chief

Delivering his annual speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on 13 December, Radakin said that Putin, compounding “his first catastrophic mistake” in invading Ukraine, was “now making his second calamitous blunder” as the Russian economy is being increasingly bent towards servicing military requirements. “Nearly 40% of all Russian public expenditure is being spent on defence,” said Radakin. “That is more than the aggregate of health and education, and the last time we saw these levels was at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.”