Russia’s military spending is on track to hit a record this year after Vladimir Putin added almost $60 billion to the costs set out in the budget. Greg Sullivan explains.
What the rubles buy – Whatfinger News
Putin added nearly $60 billion to this year’s war budget after the Alaska talks produced nothing he would sign. The revised line is about 17 trillion rubles, roughly $199 billion, by the end of 2026, about 40 percent above the plan Moscow published at the end of 2025. Bloomberg’s sources put that figure out on Oct. 7. The out-years stay up there: 17.1 trillion rubles in 2027, 16.6 trillion in 2028, 16.3 trillion in 2029.
The hole grew with the guns. The projected 2026 deficit climbed past 7 trillion rubles, about $81 billion, from a plan of 3.8 trillion. The Kremlin covered the extra with domestic borrowing and gold sales. Bloomberg Economics’ Ekaterina Vlasova said the government is finally budgeting for a long war and still understating the cost.
Daily file from every side of the front is on Whatfinger Military.
Russia’s defense line is the war budget. America’s number below is aid to Kyiv, not the Pentagon.
SIPRI still has the United States as the world’s biggest military spender, $954 billion in 2025, down 7.5 percent from 2024 and about a third of global spending. Russia was third, at $190 billion, 7.5 percent of its own GDP. Those are national defense budgets. The war comparison is narrower, and it flips the story.
2024. SIPRI’s 2025 release put Russian military spending at about $149 billion, a 38 percent real jump, the year the war economy locked in. Kiel recorded about €46 billion in US support allocations, the year the April supplemental finally cleared and Biden pushed packages out the door. The Pentagon’s Jan. 8, 2025 fact sheet counted $65.9 billion in security assistance since Feb. 24, 2022.
2025. SIPRI’s April 2026 release put Russia at $190 billion, up 5.9 percent. Ukraine itself spent $84.1 billion, 40 percent of GDP. New US allocations collapsed. Kiel counted a single military package worth about €0.4 billion and called the drop 99 percent against the 2022–24 US average of €17.3 billion a year in military aid. Direct American weapons donations stopped under Trump. Europe tried to plug the gap and started buying American missiles through NATO’s PURL program.
🇳🇱 Minister of Defence has openly called Russia an ENEMY.
We demand that the Dutch Government either confirm her words or distance itself from them.
Is this an official declaration of direct military confrontation?Read our statement: https://t.co/kJYx9Hazhl https://t.co/H73OmHyb4e
— Russian Embassy in NL🇷🇺🇳🇱 (@rusembassynl) October 8, 2026
2026. Bloomberg’s sources, not a Kremlin press release, put the revised defense line near $199 billion. Congress left Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative authority at $400 million a year for FY2026 and FY2027. The Congressional Research Service, updated Aug. 31, put US defense articles and services committed from February 2022 through June 2026 at more than $68.2 billion. Almost all of that was already on the books by early 2025. Allies had announced about $6.3 billion in PURL purchases by June 2026. That is European money buying American kit.
One caveat belongs on the table. Russia’s published “national defense” chapter is not a clean Ukraine invoice. SIPRI’s Julian Cooper has spent two budget cycles pointing out war costs parked outside it, in occupied territory, border regions, and social payments. America’s $68 billion is drawdowns, procurement, and financing for Kyiv, not the cost of US forces in Europe. Compare the war ledgers. The Pentagon’s $900 billion-plus budget is a different bill.
Geran. Russia’s home-built copy of the Iranian Shahed. Propeller models saturated Ukrainian air defense for two years. Jet versions, Geran-4 and Geran-5, cruise at roughly 350 to 500 km/h, faster than the cheap interceptor drones Kyiv used to hold the old ones near a 90 percent kill rate. Ukrainian military intelligence told Militarnyi in August that industry was turning out about 3,000 Geran-4/5s and about 2,800 Geran-2s a month. A drone in that class costs tens of thousands of dollars. A Patriot interceptor runs about $3 million to $4 million. That exchange is the point of the weapon.
FAB glide bombs. Old Soviet iron bombs with a UMPK kit bolted on. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence recorded 8,766 guided aerial bombs in August 2026, 283 a day, the highest month of the war. Artillery and first-person-view drones do the daily killing. The glide bomb is what breaks a trench line.
🇺🇦🇷🇺 Russia fired 70 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine on Putin’s birthday, killing at least 32 people, including children.
The worst of it hit Pryluky in northern Ukraine, where a missile brought down a 5-story apartment building.
22 people are dead there, at least 5 of them children, and rescuers are still pulling people from the rubble.
Zelensky called it one of Russia’s most vile strikes.
“This is the kind of birthday present that Putin gave himself: the killing of children, the killing of people.”
Moscow insists it was aiming at military targets, so either its missiles are terrible or its definition of military is.
Source: Reuters / Writer: Julie
https://t.co/PPkye9SAPp— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 8, 2026
Iskander-M. Short-range ballistic, the missile Ukrainian air defense still struggles to stop. Ukrainian Air Force counts had 302 ballistic launches in 2024 and 511 in 2025. In August 2026, Ukraine’s defence intelligence said a newer 9M723-2 round, sometimes called Iskander-1000, had been fired, with a claimed reach of 550 km. Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles still ride in the same night waves. Lancet loitering munitions hunt artillery and radars. Armor is volume: T-90Ms beside refurbished T-72s and T-80s. Moscow is feeding the front with factories, not a new wonder tank.
What the American money already bought
HIMARS. More than 40 launchers and GMLRS rockets, per the Pentagon’s January 2025 fact sheet. It was the weapon that broke Russian ammo dumps in 2022. The truck was never the shortage. Range stayed under a political cap, then the rockets did.
Patriot and NASAMS. Three Patriot batteries committed, 12 NASAMS, HAWK, more than 3,000 Stingers, 21 air-surveillance radars. Patriot works against cruise missiles and some ballistic shots. It does not scale against a drone factory. Under PURL, Europe is now paying for a large share of the interceptors.
Javelin. More than 10,000 systems, plus more than 10,000 TOWs. The early-war tank killer. Useful in 2022. Not what decides year five.
Armor. 31 Abrams, more than 300 Bradleys, more than 400 Strykers, more than 900 M113s. The Abrams arrived as a political symbol with a heavy maintenance tail, and several were lost. The Bradley has been the useful American vehicle.
Shells. More than 3 million 155mm rounds and more than 200 howitzers. That was the consumable that matched Russia’s artillery war, until stocks and politics ran short.
F-16. European jets. The US supplied boneyard spares, training support, and in May 2025 a $310.5 million sustainment sale. Not an American fighter squadron over Ukraine.
Putin looked at Alaska, decided he was not getting his terms, and wrote another record year into the budget. Washington’s war check for the same three years is mostly a 2022–24 pile, then a stop. The factories in Tatarstan did not get the memo.
War file, all sources: Whatfinger Military. Jump-off on the Bloomberg number: Whatfinger Community.
— The Whatfinger News Team: Sgt K, Sgt L, with Lisa and Grok on edits and graphics
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