{"id":44845,"date":"2026-10-20T19:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T19:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/44845\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T19:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T19:32:26","slug":"russia-burns-through-29-million-every-hour-to-fund-its-war-against-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/44845\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Burns Through $29 Million Every Hour to Fund Its War Against Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian federal budget spending linked to the war against Ukraine reached a record 10.687 trillion rubles ($123.4 billion) in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n

According to an analysis of finance ministry data<\/a> by Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the figure represents a 30% increase, or 2.46 trillion rubles ($28.4 billion), compared with the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n

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According to the Moscow times,<\/a> military spending was 65% higher than in the first six months of 2024 and 145% above the level recorded during the same period in 2023.<\/p>\n

Compared with the first year of Russia\u2019s full-scale war against Ukraine, spending increased by 285%, while expenditures were more than five times higher than in the prewar year of 2021.<\/p>\n

On average, Russia spent about 1.78 trillion rubles ($20.6 billion) a month on its military and weapons production during the first half of this year. That amounted to roughly 59 billion rubles ($681.4 million) per day, or 2.5 billion rubles ($28.9 million) per hour.<\/p>\n

Military-related expenditures accounted for 43.8% of all federal budget spending during the six-month period, which Kluge described as a new record.<\/p>\n

Measured against government revenue, the share was even higher. Russia spent the equivalent of 57.3% of all federal budget income on the military and defense industry.<\/p>\n

A year earlier, military spending accounted for 39.2% of federal expenditures and 46.8% of revenue. Before the full-scale invasion, those figures stood at 20% and 19.8%, respectively, according to Kluge\u2019s calculations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Sine<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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About two-thirds of Russia\u2019s military spending was classified, Kluge said.<\/p>\n

During the first six months of 2026, the Kremlin spent 3.546 trillion rubles ($40.9 billion) through publicly disclosed defense budget lines and 7.141 trillion rubles ($82.4 billion) through classified expenditures.<\/p>\n

The classified portion increased by 42% compared with the previous year and was more than seven times higher than before the war.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of 2022, Russia has spent a total of 57.144 trillion rubles ($660 billion) on its military and weapons procurement.<\/p>\n

That amount is comparable to the Russian Central Bank\u2019s entire gold and foreign currency reserves, valued at $720.3 billion as of Aug. 1. It is also about 2.2 times the estimated $292.8 billion value of Russia\u2019s gold holdings.<\/p>\n

The Russian government initially planned defense spending equivalent to 6.7% of gross domestic product in its 2026 budget. Actual spending was about 1.5 times higher than planned and reached an estimated 10.5% of GDP for the first half of the year, Kluge calculated.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s growing military expenditures have contributed to a widening federal budget deficit.<\/p>\n

The deficit reached about 6.45 trillion rubles ($74.5 billion) in the first seven months of 2026, equivalent to 2.8% of GDP and roughly twice the original target for the entire year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian federal budget spending linked to the war against Ukraine reached a record 10.687 trillion rubles ($123.4 billion)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[35,2233],"class_list":["post-44845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine-russia","tag-russia","tag-russia-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@conflicts\/117474908226548155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}