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.
