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Ukraine Intel Says Russia’s War Has Cost Taxpayers $550B Since 2022
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Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service said Russia’s war against Ukraine has cost Russian taxpayers about $550 billion since the start of 2022, according to RBC-Ukraine on December 31.
RBC-Ukraine, citing a post by the intelligence service on Telegram, stated that the agency described the figure as equivalent to 24 annual Russian federal budgets for higher education or 22 annual budgets for healthcare.
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The service said 59% of Russia’s military budget is classified and that, in the first three quarters of 2025, Russia spent about $61.18 billion under “open” budget items and about $89.37 billion under “closed” items, with the classified portion up 39% from a year earlier.
The intelligence service said the Kremlin is shifting the burden of financing the war onto the population through new taxes and rising prices, and said that in conditions where anti-war criticism is punished as “treason,” space for public protest has largely disappeared.
It said average utility costs rose 43% and that authorities have declared an additional increase of about 14% for 2026, while fuel prices rose between 29% and 35%, a trend it said would continue next year.
The service also said real estate prices rose 50% in 2022–2025, with a further 6%–7% increase forecast for 2026 and up to 20% in Moscow, while the sharpest rises were in food prices, with dairy up 62% and meat up 41%.
It said forecasts for 2026 point to further increases by tens of percent and cited survey data it said showed 54% of Russians were irritated by gifts linked to self-development and a healthy lifestyle.
Earlier, it was reported that Russia’s war spending has surged, with a majority of military expenditures classified and the cumulative taxpayer cost since the start of the full-scale invasion estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
