In 2025, Russian military spending will reach almost 15.5 trillion rubles, or 7.2% of GDP. This marks a 12% increase compared to 2024, but in real terms the growth will be more modest. If the Central Bank's current macroeconomic forecast is realised, it will be no more than 4.5%. However, since the beginning of the war, actual spending has consistently exceeded planned figures, and the same may occur again in 2025.
Despite the overall increase in the military budget, funding for key areas such as arms procurement, defence industry development and nuclear forces may decline in real terms, according to experts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Their analysis indicates that a significant portion of the additional funds is not being directed towards strengthening military capability, but rather towards social payments for military personnel and their families.
Since 2021, spending on social payments to military personnel has increased almost six and a half times, from 178 billion to more than 1 trillion rubles. In 2024, such payments totalled around 915 billion rubles, but a sharp reduction to 593 billion is planned for 2025. SIPRI experts believe this reduction is largely formal, suggesting that part of the social spending has simply been classified.
The experts' assumptions align with publicly available data on the recruitment of contract soldiers. On average, the Ministry of Defence is recruiting 1,300 people per day this year, the same as in 2024. Meanwhile, ‘signing bonuses’ continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace than before. In March 2025, they were on average 10% higher than in December 2024.
Thus, although the size of the Russian military budget may seem impressive at first glance, payments to ‘participants in the special military operation’ and their families are limiting investment in the country’s defence potential. Should the war end, it could open the door for increased investment. The continuation of the conflict at its current intensity, however, makes such investment impossible.
According to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia's total military expenditure in 2025 will amount to almost 15.5 trillion rubles, or 7.2% of GDP. A similar estimate of 15.6 trillion rubles was previously given by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The majority of this amount – about 13 trillion – is allocated to ‘National Defence.’ The remaining 2.5 trillion rubles in military spending is distributed between ‘National Security and Law Enforcement’ and several civilian sectors.
However, since the start of the full-scale war, actual military spending has significantly exceeded planned levels every year. For example, according to SIPRI estimates, just under 12.8 trillion rubles were originally planned for 2024. Exact figures for actual spending in 2024 are not yet available, but based on the budget execution data as of early October, SIPRI estimates actual expenditures at around 13.8 trillion rubles. Thus, the 2025 budget implies a nominal increase in military spending of approximately 12% over the actual 2024 level. According to the latest forecast by the Central Bank, inflation in 2025 is expected to reach 7–8%. In that case, real growth in military spending could be 3.5–4.5% – a very modest increase compared to previous years.
Analysis of the Russian military budget is complicated by the fact that the volume of publicly available data has been decreasing each year. In 2024, of the 11.3 trillion rubles allocated to the 'National Defence' category, only just over 3 trillion rubles, or about 27%, were made public. In 2025, of the 13 trillion rubles, 2.9 trillion, or 22%, remained unclassified. Nevertheless, the key conclusion reached by SIPRI experts is that, despite the increase in overall spending both in nominal and real terms, actual funding for key items in the defence budget in 2025, in real terms, may be lower than the actual expenditure for these purposes in 2024. By key items, SIPRI experts refer to weapons procurement, the development of the defence industry, and nuclear forces.
This conclusion is based on an analysis of changes in the structure of Ministry of Defence spending related to the 'Social Policy' section. Until 2022, the main 'military' component of this section was military pensions, with some military payments also being classified under the 'Social Support for the Population' subsection. After the war began, spending under this subsection grew rapidly, due to compensations for participants in combat operations, payments to families of the deceased and wounded, signing bonuses for contract soldiers, and housing subsidies for military personnel. In 2021, military spending under this subsection amounted to 178.3 billion rubles, rising to 345.3 billion in 2022 and 1.15 trillion in 2023, thus increasing first twofold and then threefold. According to available data, in 2024 these expenses could have amounted to 915 billion rubles. SIPRI experts believe the final sum will be higher. For 2025, a radical reduction in spending under the 'Social Support' subsection is planned, down to 593.4 billion rubles. Since the war is ongoing and, as far as is known, the recruitment of contract soldiers is proceeding in full force, in reality, expenses are unlikely to decrease – they have simply been partially hidden in classified articles, according to SIPRI experts.
It is likely that the payments to military personnel are contained within the classified part of the 'Social Support' subsection, which amounts to 242 billion rubles in 2025. In previous years, classified spending in this subsection was minimal. Moreover, SIPRI experts suggest that some payments may have been moved to the classified section of the 'National Defence' category. They point out that, among other things, housing subsidies, which had grown from 2.2 billion rubles in 2021 to 350 billion in 2024, have disappeared from the public part of the 'Social Support' subsection. These rearrangements may explain a significant part of the rise in expenses under the 'National Defence' section. However, in this case, the amount of spending on key defence items not related to payments to the armed forces will be even smaller.
An indirect confirmation that Russia is not increasing its investment in the development of military power is the fact that spending on military R&D (a public item) is not increasing but rather decreasing. In 2024, 27 billion rubles were allocated for this purpose, with 25 billion planned for 2025. Additionally, spending on occupied territories and border regions is not increasing. Financing for the 'new territories' will decrease in nominal terms from 355 billion rubles in 2024 to 320 billion in 2025, while Crimea and Sevastopol will see a reduction from 110 billion to 108 billion. This means that, in real terms, spending on these needs will decrease by more than 10% (if inflation at the end of the year does not exceed 7%).
SIPRI’s experts’ assumptions that the overall growth of the military budget may mainly be driven by an increase in spending on personnel align with public data on the dynamics of contract soldier recruitment. There are no signs of a slowdown here. According to estimates by Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik expert Janis Kluge,in the first months of 2025, the Ministry of Defence could have been recruiting an average of 1,300 contract soldiers per day, which is about the same rate as in 2024. Kluge studied data from 37 regions, extrapolated it to the whole country, and compared it with information collected by the publications Verstka and Sibir.Realii. According to data from the closed statistics of the Unified Recruitment Point studied by Verstka, an average of 60 people were signing contracts per day in Moscow at the start of the year until mid-March. However, from March 18, when a phone call took place between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the number of new contracts increased to around 74 per day at the end of March and 99 per day in the first week of April. 'Siberia.Realii' discovered that the highest recruitment numbers at the end of March were observed in several military recruitment offices in Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk regions, as well as in Buryatia. Sources in the publication explained this by the fact that many volunteers had been monitoring the increase in one-time payments in different regions since autumn, choosing the most advantageous moment to sign a contract.
In July 2024, Putin announced an increase in the signing bonus for new contract soldiers from August 1, doubling it from 195,000 to 400,000 rubles, and recommended that regional heads also pay contract soldiers 'no less than 400,000 rubles from regional funds.' In August alone, 47 Russian regions raised the signing bonus, according to 'Vazhnyye Istorii.' At the end of the year, interest in signing contracts was expected to be further stimulated by a law forgiving debts of recruits and their spouses up to 10 million rubles. The average amount of the signing bonus continues to rise, though at a slower rate than before. In March 2025, signing bonuses were on average 10% higher than in December 2024, according to Janis Kluge’s calculations. Moreover, from January 2024 to April 2025, the average one-time regional payment increased almost sixfold, from 168,000 rubles to approximately 1 million. According to the data collected by Kluge, the most generous regions for volunteers include Mari El (regional payment of 2.6 million rubles), Sverdlovsk region (2.5 million), and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (2.2 million), followed by Magadan, Samara regions, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, and Chuvashia (all 2.1 million). Kluge’s analysis shows that, on average, about 2 billion rubles are spent daily on signing bonuses, of which 1.5 billion comes from regional budgets and 500 million from the federal budget.
However, as we can see, all of this comes at a high cost. Current payments to the military, the wounded, and the deceased are limiting the possibilities for investment in the country’s defence potential. If the war ends and the Kremlin can sharply reduce spending on personnel (or ‘cannon fodder’), it will be able to increase military potential. However, if Moscow plans to continue pressing on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the same intensity as before, investments in defence potential will be impossible.