Russian Lawmakers Approve a Budget with a Record Amount Devoted to Defense Spending

Record low unemployment, higher wages and targeted social spending should help the Kremlin ride out the domestic impact of pivoting the economy to a war footing but could pose a problem in the long term, analysts say.

The budget “is about getting the war sorted in Ukraine and about being ready for a military confrontation with the West in perpetuity,” Richard Connolly, an expert on Russia’s military and economy at the Royal United Services Institute in London, has said.

“This amounts to the wholesale remilitarization of Russian society,” he said.

Read the full story and more from the Associated Press.