Russia to spend more on health, education than military says PM

Russia's PM Dmitry Medvedev

Russia will spend 2.5 trillion rubles on education and 2.2 trillion rubles on healthcare next year compared with 2.1 trillion rubles on the military, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday following criticism that the government wants to spend more on the military than on education and health. “If we calculate the consolidated budget of healthcare and education, it will surpass that of the Defense Ministry,” Medvedev said.

But he said that, while the military is only funded from the federal budget, education and healthcare are financed from federal, regional, and municipal budgets. “Budget priorities are obvious here. But we do spend a lot of money on defense … as we had to increase service payments to members of the military and we had to solve the military housing problem,” he said.

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