2.8 billion rubles a week: Russia again budgets record sums for propaganda — more than for hospitals

This piece has two parts: a sourced news report, followed by the Sardaana News editorial position.

What happened

Russia’s draft federal budget for 2027 allocates about 145.7 billion rubles to state media — only 0.4% less than the record 146.3 billion in 2026, 6% more than in 2025 (137.2 billion) and 28% (+27.9 billion) more than in pre-war 2021, The Moscow Times reports. That averages 12.14 billion rubles a month, about 2.8 billion a week and roughly 400 million rubles a day.

The sum exceeds the annual budgets of entire regions — Vologda (139.3 billion), Tver (140.2 billion) and Tomsk (127.4 billion). Propaganda gets 38 times more than the federal cancer-fighting project (3.8 billion), 2.6 times more than clinic and hospital repairs under the “Healthcare infrastructure development” project (54.4 billion), and 8.3 times more than development of the emergency medical care system (17.7 billion).

Who gets the money

The largest recipients, according to The Moscow Times: ANO TV-Novosti (RT, Margarita Simonyan) — 30.7 billion rubles; VGTRK — 25 billion; Channel One receives targeted subsidies; MIA Rossiya Segodnya — 10.8 billion; ITAR-TASS — 4.7 billion. Komsomolskaya Pravda, Parlamentskaya Gazeta, Regnum, Readovka, the Writers’ Union and others are also funded. Since the start of the war, more than 600 billion rubles have been spent on state propaganda.

Context

The 2027 budget cuts most civilian lines — healthcare projects, the national economy, family benefits — but spares the propaganda machine. Meanwhile pro-Kremlin TV is losing viewers: Skabeeva’s audience fell 25%, “Vremya Pokazhet” about 17%, Solovyov nearly 40%. According to the Levada Center, trust in television as a source of information hit a historic low of 37% in 2026 (51% in 2013, 60% in 2016, about 40% in the first year of the war) (The Moscow Times).

In parallel, a Russian campaign around the US midterms is documented: celebrity deepfakes have spent a month urging Americans not to vote for Democrats (Meduza), and members of congressional intelligence committees describe Russian election interference (Politico). More: Celebrity deepfakes and the US midterms.

Sardaana News editorial position

Russia spends enormous budget money on propaganda despite its economic problems — and spends more on it than on hospitals and medicine. The regime cuts cancer care, ambulances and hospital repairs while feeding RT and VGTRK: for the Kremlin, lies matter more than citizens’ lives.

Part of this money works to support Donald Trump and the Republican Party — that is the Sardaana News assessment. Moscow sees Trump as a “window of opportunity” to crush Ukraine and the European Union, because the next US president will be tougher on Russia. That is why the information attack by Russian bot farms on Democrats has hit a record, and Russian agents and spies living in the US have been activated.

Not only agents are involved, but also the Russian Orthodox Church in the US and Canada. The ROC in the US has long been an FSB cell — the second one after the Russian embassy.