Putin £100bn war chest vow in bid to finally crush Ukraine

VLADIMIR Putin has approved record military spending for next year as Moscow increases pressure on Ukraine to give up territory in the east of the country.

- Andy Russell

Some £99.5billion, rubber-stamped by the Russian parliament, has been earmarked for defence as the war nears its third anniversary.

And the figure now represents 32.5% of Russia's entire budget - up from 28.4% in 2024.

Heavy fighting continued over the weekend with an 11-year-old boy killed in a Ukrainian drone attack. It hit a five-storey apartment block in Russia's western Bryansk region, according to governor Alexander Bogomaz.

The Kremlin said its air defences destroyed 29 drones overnight between Saturday and Sunday, including 20 in the Bryansk region, seven in the Kaluga region and one each in Smolensk and Kursk.

It comes after Moscow launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine's power grid, cutting supplies to much of the western region of Ternopil and damaging residential buildings in the Kyiv area.

Three people died and seven others were injured in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone struck a minibus on Sunday morning, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

And four more were killed in a missile strike on Dnipro, central Ukraine, on Saturday.

Some 24 were injured, with seven in a serious condition.