Russia's Soaring Defense Spending Is Unsustainable -- Contributor To Oilprice -- October 7, 2022

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Since May 2022, the Russian government has not released much data on the defense budget.

Nevertheless, defense spending from January to April totaled almost $26.4 billion, with about 5$8.3 billion of spending per month for March and April. Considering these dynamics in comparison with Moscow’s defense spending in previous years—roughly $5 billion per month—and the fact that the original defense budget in 2022 was 3.85 trillion rubles ($63.6 billion), the true amount for Russian defense spending in 2022 may well reach as much as $90.9 billion by the end of the year.

This estimation correlates with two key facts. First, in June 2022, the additional planned spending for arms manufacturing was officially estimated at $9.9 billion–$11.6 billion.

Second, after revising it in September 2022, the estimate for the entire Russian defense budget in 2022 was adjusted to $77.7 billion, and this change will definitely not be the last.

In this way, defense spending itself is throwing the Russian state budget out of balance. And this spending does not include funding for security and law enforcement agencies, such as Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) and the Russian Federal Security Service, which are also involved in the war against Ukraine.

Originally, the 2022 budget for security and law enforcement organizations was set at $46.3 billion, but evidence shows that the plan has been significantly changed a number of times since then.

The turbulence in Russian defense spending will probably increase in 2023.

The budget proposal for 2023 considers almost $82.6 billion for defense and $69.4 billion for security and law enforcement, up from the previously planned $59.5 billion and $47.9 billion, respectively.

However, the ongoing mobilization casts doubt on this plan from the outset, as clear parameters for this process have not been delineated, and it is already carrying on in quite a chaotic manner. In this way, if the war continues into 2022, then Russian defense spending will most likely be significantly higher than $82.6 billion.