MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry operated under severe financial constraints this year, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov stated at the ministry's final board meeting.

"In 2025, the Defense Ministry operated under severe financial constraints related to the federal budget's capacity. However, military operations led to an increase in military spending. All of this required strict optimization and prioritization of the military budget and a restructuring of the internal mechanisms for its planning and execution," he said.

Belousov noted that "austerity measures were applied" to expenses not directly related to military operations.

"Some expenditures were deferred to later dates. Others were reduced. This made it possible to reduce the overall value of such expenditures as a share of GDP from 2.7% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025," the minister said.

Earlier, First Deputy Defense Minister Leonid Gornin announced that a system for monitoring the execution of military budget expenditures had been created within the Defense Ministry.

According to the First Deputy Minister, this allowed for the reallocation of more than 860 billion rubles ($10.7 bln) in 2025 for the procurement of priority weapons, special-purpose equipment, and military equipment by optimizing state defense procurement assignments for military and special-purpose equipment and weapons, as well as optimizing expenses.