Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved budget plans which raise 2025 military spending to record levels as Moscow seeks to prevail in the war in Ukraine.
Around 32.5% of the budget posted on a government website on Sunday has been allocated for national defence, amounting to 13.5 trillion rubles (£99.5 billion), up from a reported 28.3% this year.
Politicians in both houses of the Russian parliament, the State Duma and Federation Council, had already approved the plans in the past 10 days.
Russia’s war on Ukraine, which started in February 2022, is Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War and has drained the resources of both sides.
Kyiv has been getting billions of dollars in help from its Western allies, but Russia’s forces are bigger and better equipped, and in recent months the Russian army has gradually been pushing Ukrainian troops back in eastern areas.
A Ukrainian serviceman demonstrates a Gnom 2 ground drone in the Zaporizhzhia region (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine’s 65th Mechanised Brigade/AP)
On the ground in Ukraine, three people died in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone struck a minibus on Sunday morning, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Seven others were injured in the attack.
Meanwhile, the number of people injured in a missile strike in Dnipro in central Ukraine on Saturday rose to 24, with seven in a serious condition, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Four people were killed in the attack.
Moscow sent 78 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said.
According to Ukraine’s air force, 32 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 45 were “lost” over various areas, probably due to being electronically jammed.
In Russia, a child was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional governor Alexander Bogomaz.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight into Sunday in four regions of western Russia – 20 over the Bryansk region, seven over the Kaluga region, and one each over the Smolensk and Kursk regions.