Russia plans to allocate $1.1 trillion to military rearmament by 2036 — its largest arms program since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Chief Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov announced this at a panel discussion during an annual meeting of Ukrainian ambassadors, which the Defense Intelligence Unit of Ukraine shared on Telegram.
“There is a total mobilization of politics, economy, and society of the Russian Federation to be ready for the upcoming large-scale war,” Budanov said, adding that Russia already formed two new military districts in Moscow and Leningrad, with plans for more.
Russian Presence in Africa
Budanov warned that “Russia is seeking to destroy the current security and economic order.”
He cited Moscow’s increasing presence in Africa, where it has been criticized for supporting authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations.
For example, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in the Sahel region have begun turning to Moscow for defense and economic assistance instead of their former Western colonizer, France.
In June 2025, diplomatic sources reported that the Kremlin-led Africa Corps replaced the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in Mali, while Mali’s junta chief General Assimi Goita visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to expand cooperation in defense, transport, and the economy.
Russian Cyber Operations
Ukraine’s intelligence chief also highlighted Russia’s “hybrid information and cyber operations” against Kyiv and its allies, where it is “interfering in the civilized democratic process through controlled media and opinion leaders.”
This month, Russia was reported to have been using a Slovak cyber firm to publish sensitive information of Ukrainian soldiers on Moscow-controlled websites as part of “information and psychological warfare” tactics.
In April, Poland’s Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski spoke out against a growing number of Russian cyberattacks that attempted to trigger public panic in the months leading up to its presidential election.
“Moscow aims to impose its own vision of the future world order on countries, where ‘great’ powers, primarily the Russian Federation, have full power, monopoly on all critical resources and decide the world’s fate in a closed circle,” Budanov stressed.
Defense Expenditure
The Kremlin’s military spending reached $149 billion in 2024, a 38 percent increase from the previous year, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s report in April.
Meanwhile, NATO Chief Mark Rutte noted that Russia is producing as much ammunition in three months as all NATO members do in a year.
“Russia is reconstituting its forces with Chinese technology and producing more weapons faster than we thought,” he said.
