Ryhor Azaronak discussed Belarus' strong social orientation with political scientist Andrei Lazutkin on October 14, 2025. The host claimed that the country spends most of its budget on social programs:
"Let me remind you that, for example, we allocate about $50 million in the budget for all security agencies combined (meaning the army, police, KGB and everything else). Of course, any budget also has a classified portion of this funding, but that's roughly the figure. Social programs (and that's everything combined: construction, health care, education and everything related to family, society, daily life, living standards) account for 80% of our budget. 80! That's a huge, huge number."
Budget expenditures for 2025 total nearly 50.3 billion rubles (approximately $16.2 billion). That means the $50 million Azaronak allocated to security forces amounts to just over 0.3% of the budget. In reality, the budget allocates more than 4.7 billion rubles to national defense. Even more — 5.3 billion rubles — goes to the judiciary, law enforcement and security, which includes spending on the police, KGB, prosecutor's office and so on. All together, that's 10 billion rubles or more than $3 billion — 60 times more than Azaronak claimed.
In the consolidated budget, which combines the national budget and all local budgets across the country, defense, security and courts account for 12.4%.
Social spending includes expenditures on education, health care, social policy, sports, physical education, culture and media. This accounts for roughly 42% of the consolidated budget. Another roughly 5% goes to utilities and construction. That means the total is 47%, not the 80% Azaronak claims.
Five years ago, in 2020, the state spent 9.8% of budget funds on defense and security, and half on social programs.
