Waging the war in Ukraine costs Russia around a trillion rubles (€10.2 billion per current exchange rate) per month in military expenses alone. Assessments suggest that hidden war-related expenditures veiled under a variety of other categories in the federal budget could account for an extra 30% on top of this, co-funding by regions and private entities further adding to the total.9 Meanwhile, the Ramstein coalition’s monthly cost of military support averages at €5.3 billion (including still undelivered and multi-year commitments).
Russia’s military budget for 2023, after being doubled mid-year, comprises a third of the entire federal budget. A similar share (29.4%) has been planned for military expenditure in 2024, effectively at the expense of essential state functions such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social policy.10 Concurrently, the war effort is biting into Russia’s National Wealth Fund reserves substantially and at a significant pace – and will almost certainly continue to do so as long as the war lasts. Given the setbacks in health and social sphere budgets as well as the announced increase of pensions11, other federal funds such as The Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and The Federal Fund for Mandatory Medical Insurance are unlikely to provide any shelter for uncovered costs.
More from that Estonian report.
Perhaps we can expect more protests about the price of staple foods from ordainary Russian civilians.