‘It will hurt them’: Why Putin plans to cut defense budget while the West arms up?

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that Russia plans to cut its defense spending, even as Western countries, particularly Nato members, move to sharply increase theirs. “We plan to cut defense spending, while the West ramps theirs up. Let them, it won’t make them safer, and it will hurt them socially and economically,” Putin said at a press conference in Minsk, as reported by RT.

Putin acknowledged the high cost Russia has already borne from its military campaign in Ukraine. “6.3 per cent of Russia's GDP goes on defence needs. That is 13.5 trillion rubles ($172 billion). It’s a lot,” he said. “We paid for it with inflation, but now we are fighting this inflation.”

He criticized Nato’s pledge to raise defense budgets to five percent of GDP, calling it “aggressive” and warned that such spending increases would backfire on Western countries.


Contradictory peace proposals stall talks with Ukraine
Putin also addressed the stalled peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, describing the recent exchange of peace proposals as “absolutely contradictory.” After two rounds of talks in Istanbul this month, the sides remain far apart on key issues, despite agreeing on large-scale prisoner exchanges.

“As for the memorandums, as expected, nothing surprising happened... these are two absolutely contradictory memorandums,” Putin said, as reported by AFP. “That’s why negotiations are being organised and conducted, in order to find a path to bringing them closer together.”

Russia has demanded that Ukraine surrender more territory and halt Western military support, conditions Kyiv rejects. Putin said Russia is ready to continue prisoner swaps and is prepared to return the bodies of 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict.

Putin credits Trump for stabilizing US-Russia relations
On relations with the United States, Putin gave credit to President Donald Trump for helping ease tensions. “Thanks to President Trump, relations between Russia and the United States are beginning to level out in some ways,” Putin said, as quoted by Reuters.

Though not everything is resolved diplomatically, Putin said “the first steps have been taken and we are moving forward.” He expressed “great respect” for Trump and said a meeting with him is “quite possible,” though it would require “careful preparation.”