Ukraine’s military spending reached $44B in 2022 - SIPRI

Ukraine's military spending grew by 640% in 2022 compared to the previous year, and came to $44 billion.

This is said in a press release issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Ukrinform reports.

“Ukraine’s military spending reached $44.0 billion in 2022. At 640 per cent, this was the highest single-year increase in a country’s military expenditure ever recorded in SIPRI data. As a result of the increase and the war-related damage to Ukraine’s economy, the military burden (military spending as a share of GDP) shot up to 34 per cent of GDP in 2022, from 3.2 per cent in 2021,” the document says.

It is noted that last year Russian military spending grew by an estimated 9.2 per cent, to around $86.4 billion.

“This was equivalent to 4.1 per cent of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, up from 3.7 per cent of GDP in 2021,” the document says.

Experts stressed that the United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender.

“US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 per cent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender,” the document says.

As reported by Ukrinform, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Ukraine became the world's third largest arms importer in 2022 following the Russian invasion of the country in February 2022.