Russia's regions have ramped up spending this year on national security and law enforcement as the state intensifies its crackdown on any form of dissent amid a failing war, according to a new report.
Regional spending on security services and police rose on average by more than half, a new record since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to a detailed report released by Russia’s Gaidar Institute on August 30 and reviewed by The Moscow Times last week.
Spending on security and law enforcement remains a small part of Russian regions' overall budget, with the federal budget overwhelmingly covering those needs.
The jump in regional spending on security and law enforcement this year is vastly outpacing other areas, such as communal housing, social spending, and health care, the report says.
Regional spending on housing and communal services rose by a quarter while social spending, including pensions, by 18 percent on average. Health-care spending fell for the second year in a row, declining more than 3 percent on average.
Overall, regional budgets increased spending this year by 13 percent.
Russia's federal budget accounts for the lion's share of spending on security and law enforcement and the increase has been no less staggering.
Russia is on pace to boost spending on those segments this year by 48 percent, surpassing the record set in 2012 following large-scale street protests in Moscow, the Gaidar Institute wrote.
Russia is boosting law enforcement numbers and pay as the Kremlin steps up domestic repression to a level not seen since Soviet times, following its poorly planned invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
As many as 120,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the fighting to date and 180,000 injured, The New York Times reported last month, citing unidentified U.S. officials.
Repression has contained public anger over the tremendous losses.
The Kremlin has outlawed any criticism of the armed forces, going so far as to detain people for comments they made in private conversations, a throwback to the Soviet years. Political opponents have been sentenced to decades behind bars.
At the same time, Russia's security services have stepped up their search for internal enemies.
Russian authorities have launched 82 treason investigations over the first seven months of 2023, a quadrupling over all of 2022, according to Kholod, an independent news website.