The State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, is due to begin examining the 2027–2029 draft on 22 October. President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party won an absolute constitutional majority in September's parliamentary elections, making major amendments unlikely before it passes. Military expenditure this year has reached 17 trillion roubles (€181 billion) against the 12.1 trillion (€129 billion) originally budgeted, showing the escalating cost of the full-scale invasion Russia launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Defence and security's 44% share of the 2027 budget is the highest on record. The Finance Ministry's draft lists "fulfilling social obligations to citizens" as its top priority. The figures tell a different story.
Social policy spending will fall 7% in 2027, from 7.1 trillion roubles (€76 billion) to 6.65 trillion (€71 billion), covering pensions, payments to veterans, maternity benefits and other support. The government has pledged to index these payments against inflation. Russia's official inflation rate has exceeded 8% for much of the past two years, and independent economists put the real figure higher.
The Kremlin has announced a 10 trillion rouble (€107 billion) "children's budget" over the next three years, covering maternity payments, child benefits, and housing programmes. The ratio of those funds to defence spending is one to five. Federal payments to servicemen and their families fall under the "national defence" section, whose spending will rise by roughly a quarter next year.
The federal budget is not the only source of pressure on social spending. Russia's regions partly fund war-related payments, many of which are already running deficits, forcing local authorities to cut civilian budgets. In late September the Arkhangelsk region redirected more than 63 million roubles originally earmarked for social support — two-thirds from payments to foster parents, the rest from support for large families — to one-off war payments and death compensation.
A few days earlier the Tula region cut 54 million roubles from spending on foster children, low-income households, families with disabled children, housing repairs for orphans and support for labour veterans, redirecting the sum to servicemen's pay and compensation for the dead. In St Petersburg, authorities have prepared a bill reducing spending on education, transport repairs and medical projects while increasing payments to servicemen. Regional lump-sum death payments — known informally as "coffin money" — have been cut across Russia since autumn of last year.
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