Russian Defense Spending Surges Due to War in Ukraine

The significant rise in Russia's year-end budget expenditures, compared to initial projections, is largely attributed to the full-scale war that the Russian Federation has launched against Ukraine.

This was reported by The Moscow Times, citing Russian First Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova.

“These are expenses for a very rapid response, mainly for defense capability,” said Okladnikova.

The budget law envisaged expenditures this year in the amount of 36.7 trillion rubles ($378 billion). This is 13% more than last year, which turned out not to be enough. In the summer, the budget estimate grew to 38 trillion rubles ($391 billion), and in the 2025 budget submitted to the State Duma on September 30, expenditures this year were already indicated in the amount of 39.4 trillion rubles ($405,7 billion).

The specifics regarding the allocation of additional funds remain unclear, as information about expenditure structures has become restricted. Initially, operational data related to budget execution was publicly available. However, since 2024, details on how expenditures are distributed across various areas have not been included in the annually adopted budget execution laws. Furthermore, there is a notable discrepancy each year between actual budget execution and planned allocations.

According to the agency, initially, defense spending for this year was planned at 10.8 trillion rubles ($111 million). If we add to them half of the summer increase in the budget estimate (0.7 trillion rubles) and 1.5 trillion rubles ($15.5 million) of additional spending that Okladnikova spoke about, we get almost 13 trillion ($133 million) that the state will spend on the army and the military-industrial complex per year. 10 years ago, this was the total budget expenditure: 13.3 trillion rubles ($136 million) in 2013, before the annexation of Crimea. This year, they will be three times more.

Previously, Russia's draft federal budget for 2025-2027 set aside 90 billion rubles (around $937.5 million) for one-time payments to recruits signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense, with the goal of enlisting up to 225,000 new contract soldiers.