Russian government stops reporting federal budget’s operative expenditures. This data helped determine budget spending on secret programs.

Russia’s official federal budget website has stopped publishing current data on budget expenditures. The independent news outlet The Bell has pointed out the change.

In the past, journalists relied on operative expenditures data to determine the amounts of government spending on secret programs. Last May, for example, The Bell calculated that the federal government had spent over 3 trillion rubles (roughly $36 billion) on classified projects, making them the largest category of Russia’s government spending.

Secret budget spending includes national defense, security, and law enforcement expenditures. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, amounts spent on managing the annexed Ukrainian territories have also been classified.

The Bell has reached out to the Finance Ministry for comment, but had not received a reply as of the time of this publication.