Preparing for a Fourth Year of War: Military Spending in Russia’s Budget for 2025

The Russian government has been devoting an ever-increasing volume of resources to the war with Ukraine, while attempting to maintain normality for its citizens. Russia has maintained an almost balanced budget because the economy has been growing at a rapid pace, despite tough international sanctions. The challenge in preparing the budget for 2025–27 was to continue this balance as the economy showed signs of overheating and the Central Bank attempted to cool it, creating problems for businesses.

Despite diminished budget transparency, Russia’s total planned military expenditure in 2025 can be estimated at 15.5 trillion roubles, a real-terms increase of 3.4 per cent over 2024 and equivalent to 7.2 per cent of gross domestic product. This level of spending should be manageable, but budgetary pressures could mount.

A growing share of total military spending lies outside the budget chapter ‘National defence’, including spending on social support. This is rendering ‘National defence’ an ever more unreliable proxy for Russian military spending. In addition to military expenditure, the budget includes war-related spending on territory occupied in Ukraine and its own border regions.