Moscow Boosts Spending on Housing Not to Help Russia’s Regions but to Help Russia Control Occupied Ukrainian Lands, Lyutova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – One of the few line items in the 2025 Russian budget to go up in percentage terms by more than spending on the military and the siloviki more generally is for housing and communal services, a trend that many Russians mistakenly believe is the government’s response to natural disasters this year.

            But that is not the case, Moscow economic journalist Margarita Lyutova says. Instead, increased spending in this area is part of Putin’s war effort because the budget allots almost as much to the Russian-occupied territories as it does to all the federal subjects within the borders of the Russian Federation (theins.ru/opinions/margarita-lutova/275515).

            This is just one of the statistical sleights of hand the Russian government is doing to obscure just how much Putin’s war in Ukraine is hurting the Russian people and especially those who live outside the megalopolises and arms producing regions, the Russian economic journalist says. 

            Others include changing what the government is actually spending on under the traditional rubrics which are understood very differently, Lyutova says. Thus, increasingly, Moscow is gutting spending on schooling in normal subjects in favor of using educational institutions as propaganda channels.

            This pattern means that Putin’s war in Ukraine is costing the Russian people far more than they generally recognize, Lyutova concludes.