Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
He stated in a speech, that “the people of Russia will never bend to anyone’s will.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin made his financial plans for the coming years clear this week.
Speaking to lawmakers on Monday, he declared that military spending will remain the top priority for the next three years, The Moscow Times reports.
In his speech, Putin accused Western countries of unleashing a “Russophobic machine” and setting “world records” for sanctions. He insisted that “the people of Russia will never bend to anyone’s will.”
The Russian leader claimed that state institutions remain ready to defend the country. Even so, he promised that upcoming budgets would still focus on “addressing urgent social issues.”
Squeezing civilian life
Financial reality paints a far tighter picture. Official plans originally allocated 12.9 trillion rubles to national defense for 2026. However, Bloomberg reported that actual military costs will exceed that target by 4 to 5 trillion rubles.
To plug the gap, the Russian Finance Ministry is preparing deep cuts to civilian programs and borrowing trillions more. War spending in the first quarter alone reached 5.9 trillion rubles, according to analysis by Janis Kluge at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
That sum reflects a massive jump compared to previous years. Kluge calculated that total war costs since 2022 have reached $746.6 billion. That amount equals 28 years of state healthcare spending or 30 years of public education.
Deepening budget hole
Heavy military focus forces painful trade-offs elsewhere. Emil Ablaev, an analyst at the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting, noted that government revenues fell 3 trillion rubles short of targets last year.
Russia raised its value-added tax to 22 percent to raise cash, but the budget deficit still reached nearly 6 trillion rubles in the first half of the year. Ablaev warns the shortfall could widen to 7 trillion rubles by December.
Despite mounting fiscal pressure, Moscow is expanding its military by another 27,000 troops starting in August, and several observers and Western officials have warned that Putin might be plotting a new mobilization of another 500,000 troops this fall.
