British intelligence: Russia's military spending will be a third of its budget in 2023

Intelligence of the British Ministry of Defence has examined Russia's new federal budget signed by President Putin on 5 December.

A total of 9 trillion rubles ($143 billion) is allocated for the military, special services and police in 2023, a substantial increase from last year and about 30 percent of the total budget, British Ministry of Defense analysts said in a daily Sunday morning briefing.

They also consider the spending and revenue sides of the budget to be overly optimistic, and believe that the pressure on the non-military parts of the budget is likely to increase significantly in order to raise funds for the continuation of the Ukrainian campaign.

In his turn, the press secretary of the aggressor country's president, Dmitriy Peskov, said that Russia can end the war in Ukraine if President Vladimir Zelensky wishes, while saying that the Russian troops want to reclaim the territories liberated by the Ukrainian armed forces because they consider them "occupied". According to the Kremlin, the Ukrainian lands are "occupied by Kyiv".