In the first quarter, 3.6 trillion rubles were spent from the federal treasury under classified items, according to calculations by Janis Kluge, a research fellow at the German Institute for International Security Studies, based on data from the Ministry of Finance and materials for amendments to the budget law.

Compared to the same period last year (2.5 trillion rubles), secret expenses jumped by 44%, or 1.1 trillion rubles, and their share reached a new record - 32% of the 11.2 trillion rubles that the budget spent in three months.

As a result, hidden expenses became the second largest budget item after "social policy" (4.4 trillion rubles). They exceeded healthcare expenditures by more than 7 times (0.5 trillion rubles) and education expenditures by almost 9 times (0.4 trillion rubles). While overall budget expenditures increased by 2.2 trillion rubles year-on-year (+24%) in the first quarter, every second ruble of this increase went into the "shadow budget".

Almost all secret expenditures are related to defense, and their growth in the first quarter is probably explained by accelerated financing of contracts for the production and purchase of weapons, Kluge notes. According to open defense items, the budget spent 810 billion rubles in January-March, according to materials posted on the Duma website. Total defense expenditures thus reached 4.4 trillion rubles, or 40% of the budget, over three months. On average, the military machine "ate" 338 billion rubles a week — an amount comparable to the annual budgets of rich Russian regions such as Novosibirsk and Rostov Oblasts (333 and 336 billion rubles, respectively).

Growing secret expenses indicate further militarization of the budget, Kluge notes. This year, the government planned to spend 13.2 trillion rubles, or almost every third ruble, under the "national defense" item, which has not happened since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Secret expenses, according to Bloomberg, are planned at 12.9 trillion rubles per year — 16% higher than in the 2024 budget. Their share should be 30%. For comparison: last year it was 27.6%, in 2023 — 22.6%.