Latest news with #defencespending
Daily Mail
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
ANDREW NEIL: Labour's hollow drivel can't conceal that the defence of the realm is not safe in their hands
Daddy did it! Donald Trump, designated 'Daddy' by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte for knocking and Iranian heads together when they were behaving like 'two kids in a schoolyard', pulled off his second triumph of the week when Nato countries committed themselves to massive increases in defence spending. 'You are now flying to another great success in The Hague,' Rutte told Trump, ramping up the sycophancy while the US President was en route to the Nato summit, hard on the heels of the Israeli-Iranian ceasefire he'd engineered.
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Putin: I'm ready to scale back military spending
Vladimir Putin has announced plans to scale back military spending after Kremlin officials warned that Russia is 'on the brink of recession'. The Russian leader said he would reduce defence spending 'next year and the year after, over the next three-year period' at an economic summit of five post-Soviet states in Minsk on Friday. Responding to Nato's plans to raise defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, Putin said the alliance's members would spend on 'purchases from the USA and on supporting their military-industrial complex'. 'So who is preparing for some kind of aggressive actions? Us or them?' he added. The comments came after Maxim Reshetnikov, the Russian minister of economic development, last week announced that the country is 'on the brink of going into a recession'. Elvira Nabiullina, the Russian Central Bank governor, also warned that the country's wartime economic momentum – driven by massive state defence sector spending – was grinding to a halt. 'We grew for two years at a fairly high pace because free resources were activated,' she said. 'We need to understand that many of those resources have truly been exhausted.' Russia's economy grew by 4.3 per cent in 2024, however, in an effort to kerb rampant inflation, interest rates were held at a staggering 21 per cent since October, before being cut marginally to 20 per cent this month as pressure eased slightly. Inflation has largely been driven by sanctions creating higher import costs. Wage growth has also soared to a 16-year high due to labour shortages caused by syphoning off workers into the defence sectors and the military. Moscow's Higher School of Economics estimated that there was a deficit of 2.6 million employees at the end of 2024. The Kremlin has also offered high wages and generous signing-on bonuses to soldiers in an effort to fill the ranks on the front line. Although the military-industrial complex has benefitted from increased state spending, private-sector industries have been impacted by lower demand, rising costs and large debt exposure due to sky-high interest rates. Russian banking officials have privately warned of a risk of a crisis over the coming year due to a growing number of businesses unable to make loan payments, Bloomberg News reported. Future costs could include that of reintegrating veterans of the war in Ukraine. Of the almost 140,000 Russian soldiers who have returned to civilian life, half reportedly remain unemployed. Putin, however, brushed off claims that the Russian economy was faltering at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum last week. He said: 'As far as the 'murder' of the Russian economy is concerned, as a famous writer once said – 'rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated'.'
Reuters
20 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Putin says Russia plans to cut military spending from next year
MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia was looking to cut its military expenditure from next year, contrasting that with NATO's plan to ramp up defence spending over the next decade. NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5% of gross domestic product in the next 10 years, citing what they called the long-term threat posed by Russia and the need to strengthen civil and military resilience. In his first reaction to that move, Putin told a press conference in Minsk that the NATO spending would go on "purchases from the USA and on supporting their military-industrial complex", and this was NATO's business, not Russia's. "But now here is the most important thing. We are planning to reduce defence spending. For us, next year and the year after, over the next three-year period, we are planning for this," he said. Putin said there was no final agreement yet between the defence, finance and economy ministries, "but overall, everyone is thinking in this direction. And Europe is thinking about how to increase its spending, on the contrary. So who is preparing for some kind of aggressive actions? Us or them?" Putin's comments are likely to be greeted with extreme scepticism in the West, given that Russia has massively increased defence spending since the start of the Ukraine war. The conflict shows no sign of ending and has actually intensified in recent weeks, as negotiations have made no visible progress towards a ceasefire or a permanent settlement. Putin said Russia appreciated efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to bring an end to the war. "He recently stated that it turned out to be more difficult than it seemed from the outside. Well, that's true," Putin said. Trump said this week that he believed Putin wanted to find a way to settle the conflict, but Ukraine and many of its European allies believe the Kremlin leader has no real interest in a peace deal and is intent on capturing more territory. Putin said Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were in constant contact, and Moscow was ready to return the bodies of 3,000 more Ukrainian soldiers. Russia is seeing a sharp slowdown in economic growth as the budget comes under pressure from falling energy revenues and the central bank is trying to bring down inflation. Russia hiked state spending on national defence by a quarter in 2025 to 6.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest level since the Cold War. Defence spending accounts for 32% of total 2025 federal budget expenditure. Defence plants have been working round-the-clock for the past several years, and the state has spent heavily on bonuses to attract soldiers to sign up and on compensation for the families of those who are killed. Putin acknowledged that Russia had paid for the military spending increase with higher inflation. The finance ministry raised the 2025 budget deficit estimate to 1.7% of gross domestic product in April from 0.5% after reducing its energy revenues forecast by 24%, and it plans to tap into fiscal reserves this year to balance the budget. The next draft budget is due to appear in the autumn.
Malay Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
‘Daddy's home': Love-bombed in The Hague, Trump basks in Nato flattery
WASHINGTON, June 27 — It will go down as the summit where US President Donald Trump learned to stop worrying and love Nato. Trump revelled in gushing praise from leaders in The Hague — including being called 'daddy' by alliance chief Mark Rutte — and a pledge to boost defence spending as he had demanded. But it went further than just lapping up flattery. Trump also spoke of what sounded like an almost religious conversion to Nato, after years of bashing other members as freeloaders and threatening to leave. 'I came here because it was something I'm supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit differently,' Trump said at his closing press conference on Wednesday. 'I watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I've never seen quite anything like it. 'It was really moving to see it.' A day after returning to the White House, Trump still sounded uncharacteristically touchy-feely about his time with his 31 Nato counterparts. 'A wonderful day with incredible and caring Leaders,' he posted on his Truth Social platform yesterday. Turnaround It was a remarkable turnaround from the US president's first term. Trump repeatedly berated allies as not paying up and threatened to pull the United States out of Nato as part of his wider disdain for international institutions and alliances. At his first summit in 2017 in Brussels, Trump memorably shoved aside Montenegro's prime minister Dusko Markovic as he made his way to the front of the stage. A year later Trump publicly lambasted Germany and privately talked about wanting to quit. But this time Nato leaders had carefully choreographed the trip. They massaged the numbers to give Trump the defence spending deal he craved. And while Trump headed to the summit dropping F-bombs in frustration at a shaky Iran-Israel ceasefire, Nato leaders love-bombed him from the moment he arrived. The Netherlands put him up overnight in the Dutch king's royal palace and gave him a royal dinner and breakfast — 'beautiful,' according to Trump — while Nato organisers kept the summit deliberately short. Frederick Kempe, the chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council, said Trump had 'waxed poetic' about Nato in a way he had never done before. 'Trump — the vilifier of European deadbeats on defence and crusader against allies for what he sees as unfair trade practices — sounded like an altered man,' he said in a commentary. 'Daddy's Home' The question now is what it means for Nato when the alliance's priorities end up guided by one man. The final summit statement's language on Russia's invasion of Ukraine was watered down from previous years. It also made no mention of Ukraine's push to join Nato. Reporters were not allowed into Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The move was partly because of their Oval Office bust-up in February, but it also deprived Zelensky of the set-piece he had craved. 'The biggest loser was Ukraine,' said Ed Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute in London. Trump also hinted at what lies in store for any backsliders on the defence spending pledge, threatening to make Spain 'pay' on trade over its resistance to commit to the new target. As with any relationship, the pressure will now be on Nato to keep up the first flush of love over the three summits that are due to take place over the rest of Trump's second term. 'The real worry is that Nato will be unable to keep up the hype,' said Arnold. For now, though, Trump and his administration seem to be content. As he arrived back in Washington, the White House posted a video of summit highlights, with the caption: 'Daddy's Home.' — AFP
Sky News
a day ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Brazil calls out world 'preoccupied' by defence, as it prepares to host global climate summit COP30
Brazilian officials have rebuked the push to increase defence spending, as it tries to bring countries together for negotiations on tackling climate change later in the year. Last year's COP climate conference ended in disappointment after failing to cough up anything like enough money to help countries cope with already rising sea levels, heavier floods and harsher droughts, which are forcing people to migrate. But this week NATO member states broadly agreed to a US demand to boost defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product. Leaders are anxious about military threats from Russia and terrorism, while the number of global conflicts and people killed in them have been rising since the 2000s. Brazil's climate minister Marina Silva, in London to drum up support before Brazil hosts COP30 in November, admitted countries are somewhat "preoccupied". 1:59 "We have been discussing for so many years, the $100bn, the $300bn, and then now the $1.3 trillion targets that we need [for climate funding]," she told a news conference on Thursday. And then "very swiftly, there is an announcement of the increase of 5% in the expenditure in defence" when that money "ought to be going in the other direction", she said via a translator. The money should be used not to fight wars but for "fighting hunger [and] the climate emergency", she added. The UK in February raided its foreign aid budget to boost defence spending, prompting warnings it will struggle to keep its £11.6bn climate aid promise. Her comments echo those of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who last week told G7 leaders: "Year after year, wars and conflicts accumulate. "Military spending annually consumes the equivalent to Italy's GDP. "This corresponds to $2.7 trillion that could be invested in hunger eradication and the just transition." In Ukraine, "only dialogue between the parties can lead to a ceasefire and pave the way for lasting peace", he said. The fears about the world becoming more dangerous and fractured are set to make beleaguered climate talks even more challenging. Governments are already failing to ditch fossil fuels and are grappling with a surge in power demand, driven by things like AI datacentres and air conditioning. That means emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise when they should be plummeting - though the rise appears to be tapering off. However minister Silva did say despite the "geopolitical context", her team had encountered "a lot of the support and solidarity and commitment" to climate negotiations. She also vowed this year's COP would be "different from the preceding ones", with a focus on implementing pledges. They also met with King Charles and Prince William while they were in the capital for London Climate Action Week.
