Global military spending grew for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to an all-time high of $2.24 trillion, with a sharp rise in Europe, chiefly because of the Russian and Ukrainian expenditure, a Swedish think tank said on Monday.

Spending globally increased by 3.7 per cent in real terms, but military expenditure in Europe was up 13 per cent — its steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, said in a report. Military aid to Ukraine and concerns about a heightened threat from Russia “strongly influenced many other states’ spending decisions”.

The independent Swedish watchdog said that last year, the three largest arms spenders were the US, China and Russia, who between them accounted for 56 per cent of global expenditure.

The rise “is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” said Nan Tian, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

Several states significantly increased their military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others announced plans to raise spending levels over periods of up to a decade. Some of the sharpest increases were seen in countries near Russia: Finland (36 per cent), Lithuania (27 per cent), Sweden (12 per cent) and Poland (11 per cent).

Both Sweden and Finland jointly applied for Nato membership in May 2022, abandoning decades of non-alignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Finland has been admitted, Sweden’s bid to join Nato remains stalled by opposition from Turkey and Hungary.

“While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building for much longer,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

“Many former eastern bloc states have more than doubled their military spending since 2014, the year when Russia annexed Crimea.”

Russia also has increased its military spending. SIPRI said that grew by an estimated 9.2per cent in 2022, to around $86.4 billion.

That is equivalent to 4.1per cent of Russia’s gross domestic product in 2022, up from 3.7 per cent the previous year.

Established in 1966, SIPRI is an international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.