A Swedish think tank has reported that world military spending topped two trillion dollars last year for the first time.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released the results of its annual survey on Monday.

The report says total military expenditure around the world came to 2.11 trillion dollars, up 0.7 percent from the previous year. That's the highest figure since the institute started conducting the survey in 1988.

The United States spent 801 billion dollars. That was down 1.4 percent from 2020.

China came in second with estimated spending of 293 billion dollars, up 4.7 percent. China's military spending has grown for 27 consecutive years.

Russia ranked fifth. The think tank notes the country increased its military expenditure by 2.9 percent to 65.9 billion dollars.

The report quotes a senior SIPRI official as saying, "High oil and gas revenues helped Russia to boost its military spending."

Meanwhile, Ukraine's military spending fell to 5.9 billion dollars in 2021. But its spending overall has risen by 72 percent since Russia annexed Crimea unilaterally in 2014.

The report says, "Even amid the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels."