Russia collected 118 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) in taxes from the Ukrainian territories it occupies between January and September 2024, surpassing the total tax revenue from these regions in all of 2023, according to a report by the RBC news website on Wednesday.
In September 2022, Russia claimed to annex the southern and eastern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk following widely disputed referendums, despite not fully controlling any of these areas.
Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian-backed separatists had fought Kyiv for eight years before Moscow’s full-scale invasion, generated more than 80% of the taxes from the occupied territories. Donetsk collected 56.7 billion rubles, while Luhansk brought in 38.7 billion rubles. Zaporizhzhia and Kherson collected 14.9 billion rubles and 7.9 billion rubles, respectively.
The 22% year-on-year increase in tax revenue reflects Russia’s ongoing efforts to integrate these occupied regions into its economic and financial systems, tax experts told RBC.
Despite this growth, Russia still plans to continue providing substantial subsidies to these annexed regions, projecting to spend more than 350 billion rubles ($3.6 billion) there in 2024.
Russia’s draft budget for 2025-2027 allocates 939.8 billion rubles ($9.68 billion) for the “restoration” of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Of this, 104.5 billion rubles will be directed toward the construction and repair of residential buildings, 80 billion rubles toward infrastructure repair and maintenance, 40 billion rubles for municipal infrastructure restoration, and 30 billion rubles for administrative building repairs.
Additionally, more than 24.7 billion rubles will be allocated for “social support” to those who lost their homes during Russia’s invasion.
