The Russian government is preparing to cut funding for key healthcare projects in order to save money for military budget items, which will “eat up” every third ruble in the federal treasury next year.

According to The Moscow Times, spending on the Russian national project “Long and Active Life” will be reduced by 26% in 2026.

In monetary terms, the project, under which the Russian government promises to increase the life expectancy of citizens to 81 years, fight cancer, diabetes and hepatitis, and build hospitals, will lose almost 100 billion rubles ($1.21 billion) in funding. Its total volume will decrease from 372.7 billion to 274.2 billion rubles.

The most radical reduction – by 2.3 times – will be the program to modernize the primary healthcare system in the regions, within the framework of which it was planned to rebuild thousands of polyclinics : instead of 123.3 billion rubles this year, only 53.2 billion rubles will be allocated for it next year.

Expenditures on the federal project “Fighting Cardiovascular Diseases” will decrease by 2.5%, to 11.3 billion rubles, on the federal project to combat cancer – by 3.1%, to 144.5 billion rubles. The federal project “Fighting Diabetes” will lose 13% of funding: 8.4 billion rubles were allocated for it, compared to 9.6 billion rubles this year.

Expenditures on the federal project for the development of the ambulance system are being reduced by 28%, from 19.7 billion to 14.3 billion rubles. The federal project for the development of federal medical organizations and national research centers is losing almost 30% of the money: in the Russian budget for 2026, 16.2 billion rubles were allocated for it, compared to 26.5 billion this year.

The broader state program “Healthcare Development” will be short of 122 billion rubles in funding next year: it will amount to 1.52 trillion rubles against 1.64 trillion rubles in the budget for this peak.

Even spending on healthcare projects will go under the knife as part of the national project “Family”, which is supposed to raise the birth rate , the level of which this year has reached the lowest in modern Russian history. The state program for 2026 provides for 22.9 billion rubles for this, compared to 26.3 billion rubles this year (-13%).

It was previously reported that Russia will spend almost 40% of its budget on the army and security forces next year .

Thus, it became known that Russia plans to allocate another 39.54 trillion rubles to the army and weapons purchases in 2026-2028, which corresponds to about $477 billion at the current exchange rate.

The Russian Ministry of Finance has previously submitted to the government a draft federal budget for 2026 and a package of accompanying bills that provide for an increase in the value-added tax (VAT) rate from 20 to 22%. The Russian ministry explicitly states that the tax increase is necessary to “finance defense and security.”

For his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that most Russians support Putin and are ready to accept additional economic difficulties.

In September, Putin acknowledged that Russia’s federal budget spending was indeed rising, including due to the occupation war in Ukraine, but that this was not a major problem given the low level of national debt, hinting at the possibility of increasing borrowing to continue the war. At the same time, Putin promised not to raise taxes again in the near future.

Author:  Halyna Yalivets Джерело: https://censor.net/n3577531

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