Russian President Vladimir Putin's spending on personal security has skyrocketed this year.
Moscow – Russian despot Vladimir Putin also seems to be affected by the self-instigated Ukraine war. In particular, the recent drone strikes on Moscow worried the President of Russia. According to the independent news portal Moscow Times, data from the Russian Ministry of Finance shows that spending on Putin's security in the months of January-May amounted to about 15 billion rubles.
That's about 185,700 million US dollars. The portal also claims to have found that this corresponds to almost 77 percent of the annual budget and has increased by 15 percentage points compared to the same period last year. This means that the expenditure is higher than that for the military and border protection in the same months. However, these statistics cannot be independently verified.
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be very worried about his personal safety. © Gavriil Grigorov/ imago-images
Putin isolates himself: Russian president is afraid of arrest
According to Verstka, a Russian news agency founded as a counterpoint to the controlled media, Putin is also afraid of possible arrest. On March 17 of this year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin. He and the children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova are accused of illegally abducting children from Ukraine to Russia.
Since the arrest warrant was issued, the Russian president is said not to have left his country. All members of the European Union and almost all African and South American states are obliged to arrest Putin on their territory. According to Verstka, Putin also did not travel to a conference in India because of the open arrest warrant. (Jakob von Sass)
