Signal No. 158 · Russia's draft budget: RUB 17.1 trillion for defence

The Russian government submitted the draft federal budget for 2027 and the two planning years to the State Duma on Wednesday evening, on an order signed by Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister. The explanatory note, published on Thursday, puts the National Defence section at RUB 17.1 trillion for 2027. The budget law in force had planned RUB 13.6 trillion for that year, an increase the explanatory note puts at RUB 3.6 trillion, or 26.4 per cent. For 2028 the draft has RUB 16.6 trillion, against RUB 13.05 trillion planned before, and for 2029 RUB 16.3 trillion. The section was set at RUB 12.9 trillion in the 2026 budget and RUB 13.5 trillion in 2025.

Federal spending in 2027 is planned at RUB 48.8 trillion against revenue of RUB 43.3 trillion, which puts national defence at about 35 per cent of spending. The government also revised this year's deficit to RUB 7.345 trillion, 3.2 per cent of GDP, from a forecast of RUB 3.785 trillion, and projects deficits of RUB 5.443 trillion in 2027, 5.12 trillion in 2028 and 5.245 trillion in 2029, on a baseline oil price of USD 50 a barrel, real GDP growth of 1.4 per cent in 2027 and nominal GDP of RUB 248.3 trillion in 2027 and 281.7 trillion in 2029. By the count of Vyorstka, an exiled Russian outlet, only RUB 2.3 trillion of the 2027 defence figure is itemised in the public documents, and 34.9 per cent of all federal spending is classified. Andrei Makarov, who chairs the Duma's budget committee, set the first of three readings for 29 October.

Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's under secretary for policy, is organising a meeting in Poland next month of what diplomats describe as a working group on NATO's future, and the United Kingdom, France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have not been invited, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing six diplomats. Colby has held two earlier meetings in the same format with Poland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands; the talks have become known as the Bergen Group, after the city in Norway where the format began in June, and Denmark could be added. An official of one excluded country told Politico: "We're doing everything that is being asked of us. We're trying to understand what the criteria is and what the purpose of these meetings are." The Pentagon declined to comment. A diplomat from a participating country said the format was meant to develop proposals the full alliance could later consider; Colby has said the aim is to "pull the whole alliance along".

In Tallinn on Thursday, Kristen Michal, the prime minister: "The format that began in Bergen at the initiative of the United States is not a NATO meeting. It has been held in different formats, with participation from defence ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors, but NATO decisions are made at the NATO working level." Martin Herem, the defence minister, said that if the Scandinavian countries are invited, they too have an interest in standing up for Estonia: "In all this Baltic Sea security issue, they cannot manage without our security."

Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, and Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, the Chief of the Army, announced on Thursday, after visiting the army's Experimentalserie Land on the Bergen training area in Lower Saxony, that the army will set up a drone regiment in 2027. It is to form part of the divisional troops of the 10th Armoured Division, with an initial capability and about 300 soldiers; Freuding gave the target strength as 600. Pistorius: "In the course of '27 we will build the Bundeswehr's first drone regiment. An independent formation for unmanned systems." It is to use, and defend against, the land forces' unmanned systems in the air and on the ground "from point-blank range out to 500 kilometres", with a company of its own for electronic warfare. Handelsblatt reports it is also to receive the loitering munitions now in Bundeswehr trials, which are due to reach units next year. If the model works, it is to be carried over to the army's other divisions; integration of drones across existing units continues in parallel.

Sébastien Lecornu's government presented the 2027 finance bill in the Council of Ministers on Thursday, targeting a deficit of 5 per cent of GDP after 5.4 per cent expected this year, with EUR 43 billion of new measures. Ministries' credits are frozen; the armed forces are among the few exceptions, with a rise of EUR 6.4 billion, and the increases are offset by cuts elsewhere. The first budget documents put defence credits above EUR 63.4 billion: major programmes rise 24 per cent to EUR 17.2 billion, maintenance in operational condition 14 per cent to EUR 7.3 billion, and deterrence 7 per cent; about EUR 5.7 billion goes to operations and activity and more than EUR 7.6 billion to innovation, infrastructure, intelligence and small equipment. The government says the budget will reach "historic levels of orders and payments" to French industry (translated).

Mobile tactical radars and CBRN reconnaissance are among the planned orders, and studies begin on a Leclerc successor, now conceived as an intermediate tank capability. In June KNDS launched CAPINT, an interim tank on a Leopard 2A8-derived hull carrying KNDS France's ASCALON gun, pitched as a bridge to the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System, whose future Rheinmetall's chief questioned at the same show. The detailed annexes are still to come.