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week we turn the numbers in the

1:44

news upside down. We give them

1:46

a good shake and see which figures don't crumble

1:48

into dust. The

1:51

military might of Russia, or lack thereof, has

1:54

been in the news ever since their full-scale

1:56

invasion of Ukraine in 2022. particular

2:00

has been doing the rounds in recent

2:02

months that seems to express the terrifying

2:04

scale of the Russian war machine, that

2:07

Russia spends 40% of its

2:09

entire government budget on the

2:11

military. This claim has

2:14

turned up on podcasts. It's 2.5% Russia

2:16

has spent 40% of its budget on

2:18

defence. 40%? 40%? 40%? 40%? No. It's basically

2:23

all of it. It's percolating around on social

2:26

media and it's even been stated by the

2:28

head of the British military. The Russian economy

2:30

is being twisted even more out of shape.

2:34

Nearly 40% of all Russian public

2:37

expenditure is being spent on defence.

2:40

And you can see why it's caught so much attention.

2:42

If Russia is somehow managing to spend

2:44

nearly half its entire budget on the

2:46

military, well that seems like ominous news

2:49

for those facing it on the battlefield.

2:52

So, is it true? Does

2:54

Russia spend 40% of its budget

2:56

on the military? August

2:59

Manova has been looking into it for us. Many

3:05

things about the Russian state are shrouded

3:08

in mystery. But the original

3:10

source for this claim seems, on the

3:12

face of it, pretty straightforward.

3:14

It's the official Russian budget. The

3:17

official document is the draft

3:20

budget that was adopted in

3:22

Russia in, I think it was November

3:24

2023 and about 30%

3:27

of the budget was allocated

3:29

to defence and then

3:31

another around 10% to security

3:34

and public order. So

3:36

national security. This is

3:38

Bettina Rens, Professor of International Security

3:40

from Nottingham University in England. Already

3:43

you can see some ambiguity creeping

3:46

in. 30% of that spending is

3:48

on the military, 10%

3:52

is on security. It is a little bit

3:54

misleading to say that this all goes into

3:56

the war effort because of course Russia also

3:58

has a police service. and so on

4:00

that would be included in those numbers. It's

4:05

quite hard to say what proportion

4:07

of that 10% of security spending

4:09

should be counted. It

4:12

includes prisons, for example, which clearly

4:14

aren't part of the military, although

4:17

soldiers are recruited from prisons.

4:20

It includes border security, which mostly

4:22

is not military, although some of

4:25

the borders are also in a

4:27

war zone. So it's

4:29

quite vague as to what proportion

4:31

of spending should be classed as

4:33

military. It's probably below 40%, maybe

4:35

above 30%. But

4:40

for lack of a concrete answer, let's

4:42

err on the side of caution and

4:44

stick with the combined figure for

4:46

military and security. However,

4:49

this number itself comes with

4:51

an absolutely massive caveat. Here's

4:54

Richard Connolly, an economist of Russia,

4:56

from RUSI, the Royal United

4:58

Services Institute in London. The thing to

5:00

understand about Russia is there are two

5:03

types of spending. There is spending from

5:05

the federal budget, which includes military spending,

5:07

but there's also spending by regional and

5:09

local governments in Russia. Now, what

5:12

tends to happen is that defense expenditure,

5:15

big items like that, come out of

5:17

the federal budget, but spending on things

5:19

like health and education tend to come

5:21

from local or regional budgets. Together,

5:24

these two budgets are referred to as

5:26

the consolidated budget. And they are roughly

5:28

about equal in size. So the federal budget

5:30

is about the same size as the

5:32

sum of all of the local and regional

5:35

budgets. So when people say Russia

5:37

is spending 40% of its budget

5:39

on security-related items, that is only correct

5:41

if we think of it in terms

5:44

of it spending 40% of

5:46

the federal budget. It's actually spending closer to

5:48

20% of that consolidated

5:50

budget that includes all government spending

5:52

across Russia. So Russia

5:54

is spending 40% of its

5:56

federal budget on military and

5:58

security. But the... That equates to

6:00

more like 20% of its

6:03

total government spending when

6:05

you take regional and local

6:07

spending into account, which includes

6:09

things like hospitals and schools

6:12

you might expect to come from the central budget.

6:15

And up to a quarter of that 20% is

6:18

potentially being spent on internal

6:20

security. But

6:23

it's still not clear if this is actually

6:26

a big number or not. If

6:28

only there were a better way of

6:30

understanding Russian military spending, which would allow

6:33

us to compare it against other countries.

6:36

If we hear 40% of the budget that

6:38

sounds of course like an awful lot, I

6:41

would say the main point is that usually

6:44

military expenditure is expressed as

6:46

percentage of GDP of a

6:48

country's gross domestic product. So

6:51

if we convert it into percentage of

6:53

GDP, Russia is actually spending around 6%

6:55

to 7% of its

6:57

GDP on defense. Now

6:59

again we can say that this is high. This

7:01

is higher than what Russia spent until 2022. It's

7:05

about three times as much as most

7:07

Western European countries spent on their militaries.

7:10

But it's not as high as the Soviet Union spending

7:12

during the heydays of the Cold War. So

7:15

Russia spends 6 to 7% of

7:17

its GDP on defense, compared with 2% for the

7:20

UK, over 3% for the US

7:24

and less than 2% for China. But

7:27

this still doesn't tell you everything about the

7:29

spending power of the Russian military. For

7:32

that, you have to convert again into

7:34

dollars. Here's Richard

7:36

Connolly from RUSI again. With

7:38

military expenditure that is planned in the federal

7:41

budget of in excess of 10 trillion

7:43

rubles, that should amount to in the region of

7:45

about $120 billion. And

7:49

how does this compare with military spending

7:51

elsewhere? In dollar terms, the

7:53

biggest spenders in Europe are the

7:55

United Kingdom and France. And the

7:57

UK and France both spend... between

8:00

60 and 70 billion dollars a

8:02

year on their militaries. So if

8:04

Russia is spending 120 billion, it's

8:07

spending nearly twice as much as the

8:09

UK or nearly twice as much as

8:11

France. Of course, the biggest spender in

8:13

all of NATO is the United States.

8:16

And they still haven't agreed their budget for

8:18

2024, but it

8:20

should reach somewhere in the region of

8:23

about 800 billion dollars. So that gives

8:25

you some sense of the difference between

8:27

how much Russia spends on its military

8:30

and how much the United States spends.

8:32

And globally? It would make

8:34

Russia probably the third largest spender or

8:36

military item in the world. The United

8:38

States leads, China would be in second

8:40

place, and Russia would now

8:42

be in third place. So it spends

8:45

a lot, but it has a lot to spend that money

8:47

on. And what about Ukraine?

8:49

The country locked into the grinding

8:51

war with Russia. Or if we look at

8:53

Ukraine, if we look at its budget for the

8:55

year ahead, its total budget expenditure

8:57

is estimated to be in the region of

9:00

80 billion dollars, of

9:02

which about half, 40, maybe 45 billion,

9:06

is going to be spent on the military.

9:08

So you can see there that Ukraine will

9:10

be spending probably closer to 60% of its

9:13

budget on the military. That figure

9:15

is likely to rise as the

9:17

year goes on because the current

9:19

budget only includes spending up until

9:21

the summer on the military. And

9:24

so, of course, if the war carries on beyond the summer,

9:27

and Ukraine continues to spend in its current

9:29

race, then we can expect to see military

9:31

expenditure in Ukraine for

9:33

2024 of perhaps closer to 60 billion dollars.

9:36

So as you can see, it absorbs

9:38

a lot more of Ukraine's total expenditure

9:40

than it does for Russia. So

9:46

to sum up, Russia spends 40%

9:49

of its federal budget on military

9:51

and security combined. Although not all

9:53

of that is going into the

9:55

war effort, that's only around

9:57

20% of its total budget, equates

10:00

to around 6 or 7% of its

10:02

GDP. This is high,

10:04

Russia's become the third biggest military

10:06

spender in the world, but Ukraine

10:08

actually spends a higher proportion of

10:11

its budget attempting to repel the

10:13

invasion. Thanks to Olga

10:15

Smirnova for that report, and to

10:17

Professor Bettina Renz from Nottingham University

10:19

and Richard Connolly from WUSI. That's

10:22

it for this week, but if you've

10:24

seen a number you think we should

10:26

look at, please send us an email

10:28

to moreorless at bbc.co.uk. Until

10:31

next week, goodbye.