Russia Defense Spending

Russia's federal budget line for “National Defence” has grown increasingly opaque since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with a rising share of spending reclassified as secret or folded into related “National Security” categories that are not broken out publicly. SIPRI's roughly $100 billion estimate is therefore a reconstruction built from partial budget disclosures, customs data, and other proxies rather than a figure drawn from an audited, itemized account.

The full-scale invasion pushed military spending sharply higher as a share of both GDP and the federal budget, financed in part by drawdowns of Russia's National Wealth Fund and by oil and gas export revenue; wartime procurement of munitions and equipment replacement has kept that elevated trajectory in place well beyond the initial invasion year.

Converting ruble spending to dollars at market exchange rates likely understates Russia's real military purchasing power, since domestic labor and industrial production costs are considerably lower than in the US; analysts who adjust for purchasing power parity typically find Russia's effective military-buying capacity well above what the nominal dollar figure suggests, which is part of why SIPRI flags these estimates as approximate rather than precise.

SIPRI's own yearbook methodology notes, along with independent cross-checks from the IISS Military Balance, are the standard references for understanding how these estimates are constructed and where the uncertainty lies. Compare this page with Military Aid to Ukraine and Global Military Spending to see estimated spending alongside the aid flows it is often discussed against.