In the 2026 budget draft, the government has planned to increase funding for state television channels, media, and propaganda projects on the internet to a new historical record — 146.3 billion rubles, noted The Moscow Times*. This is more than the annual budgets of average Russian regions, for example, 122 billion rubles in the Vladimir region, 116 billion rubles in the Kirov region, 95 billion rubles in the Bryansk region. On average, state propaganda will cost the budget 12.1 billion rubles per month, or 2.81 billion rubles per week.
Compared to 2025, spending on the "mass media" category will increase by 9.1 billion rubles, or 7%. If compared to the pre-war 2021 — by 28%, or 32.4 billion rubles.
In 2026, the budget will allocate 32.08 billion rubles to ANO "TV-News" — the managing structure of Russia Today Margarita Simonyan. Funding for VGTRK, managing channels "Russia-1" and "Russia-24", will increase from 22.63 billion rubles to 24.69 billion rubles.
The targeted subsidy for "Channel One" for content production will remain unchanged — 6 billion rubles per year. Additionally, "Channel One", VGTRK, NTV, "TV Center", and several other channels will receive 20.68 billion rubles for broadcasting their programs.
FSUE "Russia Today", managing the propaganda state agency "RIA Novosti", will receive 11.18 billion rubles, funding for the state agency TASS will increase from 4.83 to 5.01 billion rubles.
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" will receive 438.8 million rubles from the budget, and the propaganda agency "Regnum" will receive 157.3 million rubles.
Meanwhile, next year the government is preparing to cut spending on the restoration of occupied regions of Ukraine.
Funding for the federal project "Restoration of Infrastructure and Promotion of Economic Development" "LPR", "DPR", as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in 2026 will be reduced by 32.4 billion rubles, or almost 10%. Next year, the treasury will allocate 293.63 billion rubles for these purposes.
* Recognized in Russia as "foreign agent" and "undesirable" organization.