How Much Does Russia Really Spend On Defense?

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu provided details of Russia's latest snap exercise at the National Defence Control Centre in Moscow on 16 March Source: Russian MoD

Michael Kofman, Dewfense News: Russian defense spending is much larger, and more sustainable than it seems

The United States has a basic problem: Devising a strategy toward great power adversaries necessitates having some reasonable estimate of their economic and military power. We do not do this especially well.

Ask yourself: Do we really know how much our adversaries spend on their military, and what they are getting for their money? Russia, for example, presents a glaring problem for academic and policy circles alike. Most comparisons are done in current U.S. dollars based on prevailing exchange rates, making Russia’s economy seem the size of South Korea’s. This approach is useless for comparing defense spending, or the country’s purchasing power. Yet, it is used frequently to argue that despite a large military modernization program, and a sizable conventional and nuclear deterrent, Moscow is a paper tiger. As a consequence, the debate on relative military power and expectations of the future military balance is terribly warped by a low-information environment.

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WNU Editor: I am very skeptical on the number quoted by the above author ....

.... In reality Russia’s effective military expenditure, based on purchasing power parity (Moscow buys from Russian defense manufacturers in rubles), is more in the range of $150-180 billion per year, with a much higher percentage dedicated to procurement, research and development than Western defense budgets.

The reason why. The Russian military industrial base is limited in the amount of equipment and material that it could produce, and what they can produce is under budget constraints. Case in point .... they have a limited budget to purchase their new tank .... Russia's New Armata Tanks Will Finally Enter The Service This Year (February 17, 2019). Another example .... they do not have the means to mass-produce their advanced Su-57 stealth fighter jet .... Russia Announces That It Will Not Mass-Produce Its Advanced Su-57 Fighter Jet (July 12, 2018). The only exceptions to these constraints is the Kremlin's focus on maintaining Russia's nuclear force, submarine fleets, S-400/500 programs, and purchasing weapon systems that may be older but are reliable. And while Russian military salaries and benefits do not match what their Western counterparts earn, it should be pointed out that their cost of living is far lower than the West. So bottom line .... if I was to hazard a guess, I would put the true Russian defense budget at around $80 - $100 billion USD.