Russia

Russia: Low Debt, High Burden, Hydrocarbon Dependence

Economic base

World Bank WDI data put Russian gross domestic product at about $2.17 trillion in 2024, across a population of roughly 143.5 million — some $14,889 per head on the same series. The economy is small relative to the military establishment it sustains, and that mismatch runs through everything below.

The sovereign balance sheet is unusually clean. IMF World Economic Outlook figures show general government debt at 19.1 percent of GDP in 2026, a low ratio by any standard. IMF International Financial Statistics report official reserves of $428.3 billion in 2025. The supplied data do not say how much of that total is accessible rather than immobilized abroad, which is a material omission for Russia specifically; the headline figure should not be read as freely usable liquidity.

Military weight

SIPRI's 2025 figures record military expenditure of $190.4 billion at 7.501 percent of GDP — a burden ratio several times what most large economies carry. Note that the dollar total and the GDP share rest on SIPRI's own national-accounts and exchange-rate conversions; dividing the spending figure by the 2024 World Bank GDP above produces a different ratio, and the two series should not be mixed. For Russia, where purchasing-power differences in domestic defense procurement are large, the dollar figure likely understates real output purchased, but the supplied data include no purchasing-power-parity estimate to quantify that.

Correlates of War National Material Capabilities data record 1.19 million active personnel in 2022 and a Composite Index of National Capability score of 0.0382. Both predate the spending data by three years, and no more recent personnel count is supplied — a significant gap given the scale of mobilization and attrition since. Nothing in this file covers casualties, equipment losses or recruitment.

The FAS Nuclear Notebook puts the warhead inventory at 5,459 in 2025, with no deployed-versus-reserve breakdown supplied.

Governance

V-Dem v15 scores for 2025 show electoral democracy at 0.17 and liberal democracy at 0.056 on a zero-to-one scale, placing Russia firmly in the closed-autocracy range of the index. State capacity is scored 0.121, low on the same scale — a reading that sits awkwardly alongside the state's demonstrated ability to mobilize resources, and one the supplied data do not document well enough to interpret further.

Energy

Our World in Data records 32.6 exajoules of primary energy consumption in 2024 and 1,192.79 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2025. Production dwarfs that: 6,121.8 TWh of oil and 6,298.6 TWh of gas, both 2024. Russia is, on these figures, an exporter of energy on a scale far exceeding domestic use, making export revenue the obvious channel through which external pressure transmits to the defense budget. No price, volume-shipped or export-destination data are supplied to trace that channel.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, IMF IFS, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, COW National Material Capabilities, FAS Nuclear Notebook, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).