Russian Ministry of Finance Releases Data on Ukraine War: $15.5 million Per Hour

Russia has been spending about $15.5 million per hour on its military campaign in Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin launched it nearly three months ago, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance this week.

Russia’s federal budget for the month of April showed that 628 billion rubles were allocated to national defense, which breaks down to about 21 billion rubles per day. This amount is comparable with some entire regions’ annual budgets in Russia.

The high cost of the war has been paid by both sides as they continue to struggle for territory. The Russian military, which started out strong in the early stages but is now losing ground against Ukraine’s defending forces. The Russian military isn’t able to supply enough equipment or soldiers due to westward advances.

The Russian military has lost momentum in its occupation of eastern Ukraine, according to a new report from the British Ministry Of Defense. Additionally, it seems that despite recent advances on Ukrainian soil by troops near Kharkiv no success could be had because these offensives were largely ineffective with only minimal gains.

The Moscow Times reported on how much money has been spent in recent months – it went up from 233.7 billion rubles back in January 2015 all the way over to 369 billion now.

Russia is spending more on the military than education and health care. This explains why, according to The Moscow Times magazine’s data from January through April this year (1.681 trillion rubles), three times as much money went into funding the armed forces compared with other sectors like culture or science which had budgetary amounts exceeding 500 billion roubles each.

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