Russian regional war and mobilization spending: shifting priorities?

Since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine, Russian officials have seized to publish actual realized federal budget spending by category, that restricts visibility into Russia’s war economy. With detailed data on regional budget expenditure from Russian regions during 2021-2024 including data for the four illegally occupied regions since 2023, I aim to explore what Russia’s defense spending at the regional level reveals about the challenges and priorities in Russia’s regional economic landscape.