Russian authorities increase cemetery budgets amid ongoing conflict

Russians are investing in the expansion of cemeteries. Last year, almost six times more was spent on this purpose than three years ago. The independent Russian portal "The Moscow Times" cited this information from the official public procurement portal. Places are quickly running out, and soldiers are still dying on the front lines.

Last year, Russian authorities allocated over 3.2 million CAD to expand cemeteries. This is almost double the expenditure of 2022 and nearly six times the amount spent in 2020.

This year, from January to June, local governments have already spent 2 million CAD on this purpose. For comparison, in 2020, Russian regions spent 557 thousand CAD on expanding cemeteries; in 2021 – over 1.8 million CAD, and in 2022 – 1.7 million CAD.

As "The Moscow Times" points out, the increase in expenditure was due to a broad-based cemetery renovation program aimed at modernizing and expanding existing infrastructure. Information from RMF24 indicates that if spending on cemetery expansion in 2018 and 2019 were included, the total amount allocated for this purpose would be 1.8 million CAD.

As RMF24 reports, despite the growing expenditures on expanding cemeteries, official statistics do not indicate an increase in deaths related to the war in Ukraine. The Federal State Statistics Service reported that in 2022 the number of deaths fell by 22%, and in 2023 by another 7.6%.

This discrepancy may indicate differences between official data and reality. The number of war casualties in Ukraine may be underestimated or underreported in official reports.

- Mortality only began to rise in 2024, and in the period from January to April, it increased by 4.5%, which translates to about 27,000 deaths. These figures, however, do not match estimates of the number of soldiers killed in Ukraine - as indicated by the RMF24 portal.

According to the independent service Meduza, 120,000 Russian soldiers died during the war in Ukraine.

"The Moscow Times" reports that the official number of COVID-19 deaths in Russia is 680,000, but unofficial estimates point to over a million victims. Nevertheless, during the two years of the pandemic, Russians spent half as much money on cemetery expansion as they did during the two years of the war with Ukraine.

According to RMF24, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug authorities spent the most on cemetery expansion during the two years of the war with Ukraine, over 3.7 million CAD. The most significant expenditures were allocated for expanding cemeteries in Nizhnevartovsk, where over 3.3 million CAD was spent on this purpose over 2.5 years.