Russia’s healthcare and education sectors have lost out on more than a trillion rubles in funding since start of full-scale war, investigation finds
Russia’s healthcare and education sectors have received at least one trillion rubles less than expected from the state budget since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe calculated.
According to the independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, Russia's healthcare and education sectors have lost more than a trillion rubles in funding since the beginning of the full-scale war against Ukraine. The gap is due to funding for the two main components of Russia's social sphere falling below the inflation rate.
The government spent 728 billion rubles less on healthcare during the war than if spending had kept pace with inflation, while education funding was short by 322 billion rubles. Novaya Gazeta Europe reported over 800 cases of staff cuts and institution closures in the social sphere since 2021, with more than a quarter of them occurring in 2026.
Over the past 10 months, the outlet identified more cases of "belt-tightening" in the social sphere than during all of 2025. The sharp cuts to social spending began in 2025 and have affected regions such as Karelia, the Vladimir region, Kemerovo and Sverdlovsk regions, Krasnoyarsk Krai, and Yakutia. The study's authors attribute the cuts to the end of the wartime economic boom of 2023-2024.
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