of finland. president putin said the russian navy will get 30 new ships this year, significant because much of the russian military budget is classified so once the economy in russia has been somewhat floundering over the last few years, military spending has increased year on year since the mid 90s but it is heavily classified information so even people with an russia do not know how much the government is spending on its army, air force and its neighbour. we will hear vladimir putin speakfully neighbour. we will hear vladimir putin speak fully in about ten minutes time, he has given a short precursor to his speech, celebrating the work of the navy especially during the ongoing conflict in ukraine. these pictures coming to us life now from st petersburg as you see. these ships going down the river which leads out into the gulf of finland, out into the baltic sea.
there would be 30 new battleships going to the russian fleet this year. they have played a crucial role of course in the ongoing conflict in ukraine, but the russian military budget is heavily classified, so quite interesting to get that information from president putin. much more on this story on the bbc website. and the bbc news app. and of course, we will bring you any breaking developments here on the bbc news channel. to stick with us, you are watching bbc news. and now it s time for a look at the weather with darren bett. hello there. it s been a promising start to the day across many parts of the country, with some sunshine, a few showers around too. but if we look out in the atlantic, this weather system is pushing in the cloud, and that s going to be bringing some rain to some parts of the country. around that first area of low pressure, we ve had the showers swirling across scotland and northern england. the worst of those are moving away.
oversight, transparency and accountability. we re not going to write a blank check. does that diminish our will to help the ukrainian people fight? no. we re going to do it in a responsible way. i think it s very important that the american people understand what s at stake here. tucker: so the u.s. military, not ukraine s military, our military, the one that s supposed to protect our country, is running out of equipment and manpower. just so we re all clear about what michael mccall s priorities are, we re sending advanced weapons system, yet more of them to ukraine, and that s in addition to what we ve already sent, bigger than the entire russian military budget. if that s not insulting enough and of course the point of this is to insult you, degrade you, make you fully aware that your country s interests come last, because you come last on the list of priorities they re going farther than that. we ve also decided to pay ukraine s energy bills. it s kind of odd we re doing that
retaliation if they do. what does that mean? is that idle talk? what would that be if it weren t? willie, that distant explosion you hear is vladimir putin s head blowing up in frustration. it ought to. be the consequence of his illegal and immoral invasion of ukraine, he has caused two superb militaries to throw in with nato. and i just to do the numbers for people for a second, finland and sweden combine have a defense budget of about $15 billion. russia s defense budget is only $60 billion the $70 billion. we re adding 25% of the russian military budget with the stroke of a pen. more importantly, the finns have 280,000 highly trained in their army. 280,000. they have 1 million reservists. their reserists are very good.
requested one.$3 billion in aid for ukraine. and in one week went up at $33 billion. that is over half of what the state department and usaid budget. half of what the russian military budget. this is a significant amount of money. they have not come out forcefully to say here is our goal, objective, why congress should authorize. that s why it s important to have bipartisan delegation going so the republican lawmaker can see what they are voting on. this is political to attach the money to a covid relief bill to bring them together if republicans but against it they will score political points. i could be wrong. steve: i thank you are right to be cynical.