Russia’s spending on the war against Ukraine in the first quarter of this year reached a new record high of 5.91 trillion rubles ($81.51 billion).

This is evidenced by calculations by Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security, based on data from the Russian Ministry of Finance, The Moscow Times reports .

Compared to the same period last year, Russia’s spending on the army and weapons production increased by 29.9%, compared to January-March 2024 – by 68.7%, compared to 2023 – by 129%, and compared to the first quarter of 2022 – by 4.6 times.

As a result, for the first time since the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the share of military spending in the Russian budget reached 46% . 

Cost comparison

On average, according to calculations, the Russian military machine “ate” about 2.7 billion rubles ($37.24 million) per hour and 65 billion rubles ($0.9 billion) per day – an amount that is comparable to the annual budget of the Novgorod or Oryol regions (69 billion rubles and 61 billion rubles, respectively).

Monthly war spending – about 2 trillion rubles – exceeded the annual budget of the entire Russian higher education system (1.7 trillion rubles) and all Russian regions except Moscow.

What did they spend it on?

The main increase in military spending fell on secret items: their volume increased from 3.4 trillion to 4.9 trillion rubles by the end of the quarter. 

Thus, 38.2% of all Russian budget expenditures (12.8 trillion rubles per quarter) turned out to be classified.

Planned expenses

At the same time, as noted, war spending is increasing, although the Russian budget included a slight reduction in it – from 7.8% to 6.2% of GDP.

In fact, in the first quarter, Russia’s military budget ballooned to 12% of GDP .

Therefore, Russia’s military spending in 2026 may be significantly higher than last year’s – up to 9-10% of GDP by the end of the year.

In cumulative terms, since 2022, the war against Ukraine has cost Russian taxpayers 53.08 trillion rubles, or $746.6 billion .

Budget deficit

The Russian federal budget this year is projected to have a deficit of 3.8 trillion rubles. At the same time, by the end of April, the actual “hole” in the treasury had already exceeded the annual plan by more than 1.5 times.

In the coming months, the Russian budget will receive increased revenues from soaring oil prices – up to 1 trillion rubles per month, but taxes on non-raw material sectors of the economy, which are falling for the first time since 2023, are becoming a problem for it.

In May, the Russian government reduced the GDP growth forecast for the current year three times – to 0.4%, which means a corresponding reduction in the tax base and a shortfall in oil and gas revenues of 300-700 billion rubles per year.

Russian economy

Earlier, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine reported that in 2022-2025, Russia spent about $130 billion , or approximately $32.5 billion each year, on circumventing sanctions and purchasing prohibited Western goods that it previously imported directly.

In April of this year, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov said that businesses should not count on increased state assistance, despite the slowdown in the economy and the recession in many industries, because the state itself lacks money .

Earlier, the Institute of National Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences recorded a contraction of the Russian economy in the first quarter of this year by 1.5% year-on-year – this is the worst indicator since the time of large-scale Western sanctions. The forecast for the whole year has been revised to minus 0.6%, which is 2.6 percentage points worse than the February estimate.

According to Rosstat, last year Russia’s GDP grew by only 1% , which is almost five times lower than the previous year’s figure: initially it was 4.3% growth, but after recalculation it increased to 4.9%.

Russian regions ended 2025 with a total local budget deficit of 1.54 trillion rubles ($20.95 billion). Compared to 2024, the “hole” in the budgets of the subjects increased 5 times, compared to 2023 – almost 8 times, and its final size became unprecedented in 20 years of available statistics.

Previously, the Russian Academy of Sciences stated that all key risks to the development of the Russian economy were realized in 2024-2025. Thus, due to unfavorable demographic trends, the labor market deficit is worsening, the technological gap with developed countries and China is growing, revenues from hydrocarbon exports and raw material rents are decreasing, the defense burden is increasing, and sanctions pressure is intensifying.

Author:  Halyna Yalivets Джерело: https://censor.net/n4008126

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