Russia’s Finance Ministry and central bank warned Putin that defense expenditures tied to the Ukraine conflict are “unaffordable” and risk triggering a full-blown budget crisis.
Putin told them to find savings everywhere else first. Defense budgets stay untouched, for now.
The numbers behind the warning
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov laid out a stark picture. He projected a budget overrun of at least $28 billion this year, with the federal deficit already blowing past planned levels.
To plug the gap, Siluanov proposed freezing roughly $40.8 billion in non-war government spending. Think infrastructure, social programs, civil service budgets. Essentially everything that isn’t keeping soldiers in the field or missiles in production.
