The Russian government is set to boost funding for state media to a historic high next year, according to The Moscow Times citing the draft 2026 budget.
The new proposal will allocate 146.3 billion rubles ($1.78 billion) to state television, news agencies and online propaganda projects — an increase of 9.1 billion rubles ($110.6 million), or 7%, compared to this year.
It also marks an increase in spending of 28% compared to pre-war 2021, adding 32.4 billion rubles ($393.9 million) to the annual bill for taxpayers.
The total volume of spending will exceed the budgets allocated to the average Russian region, The Moscow Times reports.
RT (Russia Today), operated by ANO “TV-Novosti” will receive some 32.08 billion rubles ($390 million), while Rossiya Segodnya, which manages the RIA Novisti news agency, will receive 11.18 billion rubles ($135.9 million).
TASS will receive 5.01 billion rubles ($60.9 million), compared to 4.83 last year, while 731.8 million rubles ($8.9 million) will be earmarked for disseminating pro-Kremlin content online.
According to The Moscow Times, state propaganda will cost the taxpayer some 2.81 billion rubles ($34.2 million) per week, with state television channels the primary recipients of funds.
The paper also notes that, since the start of the war, the budget has allocated some 500 billion rubles ($6.08 billion) to state propaganda bodies, despite their dwindling popularity among audiences.
Since the full-scale invasion at the start of 2022,Channel One has lost a quarter of its viewership, while Vladimir Solovyov’s flagship talk show on Russia-1 has fallen from the top 50 TV programs.
On Oct. 2, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) reported that Russia’s federal budget for 2026 will include slashes to at least 18 of 51 state programs, including in key sectors such as healthcare, aviation and energy.
It confirmed that spending on propaganda will increase, saying “in 2026, almost 12 billion rubles will be allocated to the ‘Russia in the World’ program, aimed at promoting ‘traditional values’ abroad.”
Previously, Kyiv Post reported that the Russian authorities seem to be concerned that the war in Ukraine is turning ordinary citizens against the government.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed RT network, admitted in July that Ukraine could succeed in unsettling Russians who had previously remained neutral about the war with its effective drone attacks.