Russia’s federal military expenditures for January–September 2025 reached another historic high – 11.854 trillion rubles. This is 30% (2.763 trillion rubles) higher than the same period last year. Compared to 2023, the military budget increased by 95%, compared to 2022 – by 173%, and relative to 2021 – by 295%, nearly quadrupling.
The cost of the war amounts to 1.32 trillion rubles per month, or 43.4 billion rubles per day, equivalent to 1.9 billion rubles per hour. The Kremlin is already allocating 44% of all federal budget tax revenues and 39% of total federal expenditures to fund the war.
The total cost of the war against Ukraine for Russian taxpayers has reached 42.343 trillion rubles, or approximately $542 billion. This is equivalent to 24 annual budgets of the entire Russian higher education system, 22 years of federal healthcare spending, and nearly 80 annual budgets of major regions such as Sverdlovsk Oblast (530 billion rubles) or Krasnodar Krai (600 billion rubles).
Despite ramping up defense production, Russia’s military-industrial complex remains structurally similar to the Soviet model – it consumes resources without generating economic returns. Current trends show that the Russian defense sector has become a classic “black hole” for the budget, crowding out civilian investment, limiting technological development, and cementing a model in which military spending produces not growth but chronic fiscal risks.
This imbalance indicates that the Russian economy is not operating according to the logic of industrial development or modernization, but according to the logic of sustaining the military budget, which increasingly absorbs resources needed for long-term economic growth.
