Russia’s federal budget spending on the war in Ukraine reached a historic high between January and June 2026. The aggressor state spent 10.687 trillion rubles (106.28 billion euros) on military needs and weapons production, Dialog.ua reports.
The figures were published by Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, following a review of data from the Russian Ministry of Finance.
Compared with the first half of 2025, Russia’s military spending increased by 30%, with an additional 2.46 trillion rubles (24.5 billion euros) spent.
Compared with January–June 2024, expenditure increased by 65%, or 4.211 trillion rubles (42.1 billion euros). Compared with 2023, the increase amounted to 145%, while spending was 285% higher than in the first year of the full-scale war.
Compared with the pre-war year of 2021, Russia’s military spending has increased more than fivefold. On average, Russia’s military machine cost the state budget 1.78 trillion rubles (17.7 billion euros) per month.
That amounts to approximately 59 billion rubles (587 million euros) per day,
or around 2.5 billion rubles (24.9 million euros) per hour.
Almost half of all Russian state budget expenditure is now devoted to military needs. During the first six months of the year, 43.8% of all budget expenditure was spent on the military and weapons production, marking a new all-time high.
Most of Russia’s current military spending is hidden from the public. Around two-thirds of the military budget is classified. In the first six months of 2026, Russia spent 3.546 trillion rubles (35.25 billion euros) on publicly disclosed defence items, while another 7.141 trillion rubles (71 billion euros) was spent under classified budget items.
Classified expenditure is growing particularly rapidly. Compared with last year, such spending has increased by 42% and is now more than seven times higher than before the war.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities have allocated 57.144 trillion rubles (567.6 billion euros) to military spending and weapons procurement.
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