Is the Russian war effort sustainable beyond 2024?

With a Russian war effort of more than 10% in 2024, and political action entirely focused on its armies, Russia is approaching, today, a model of a warrior state, like those which marked the history.

However, many questions remain regarding the reality of this transformation, and especially regarding the long-term sustainability of this model. So, will Russia collapse under the weight of its defense spending, like the Soviet Union before it? This is far from certain…

Since the end of spring 2022, and the obvious failure of the initial offensive in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have begun a profound transformation of Russian society. Carried out with beating drums, this aims to make Russia a warrior state, putting war and the defense effort at the heart of state action, but also of the economy and political organization. and social of the country.

Since this metamorphosis became evident, many questions have emerged, particularly as to the sustainability, over time, of this model, which is reminiscent, in certain aspects, of that of the Soviet Union from 1975 to 1992. , when the country devoted almost 15% of its GDP and most of its manufacturing activity to its armies.

In fact, many analyzes tend to cast doubt on the sustainability of this model, beyond a few years of restructuring to give the illusion of a solid economic and social base. However, the study of the socio-economic context of the country, prior to this transformation, tends to moderate these certainties, and the hope of seeing the Russian defense effort be only a flash in the pan.

The Russian war effort model imposed by Vladimir Putin since 2022

In the spring of 2022, it became clear that the great maneuver of the Northern Group of the Russian armies, wanting to capture Kharkiv and Kyiv to bring about a political collapse of the country, was a failure. The Russian general staff then quickly, and rather effectively, reorganized its strategy.

At the initiative of General Surovikin, commander-in-chief of the special military operation, Russian forces retreated behind powerful defensive lines, which have changed very little since.

If the action of the Russian general, since disgraced for his position during the insurrection led by Evgueni Prigogine in the fall of 2023, made it possible to reorganize the front, and stabilize it on the Russian side, the political power, and Vladimir Putin in particular did not remain inert, quite the contrary.

Thus, from the summer of 2022, the Russian authorities undertook to profoundly transform the socio-economic base on which Russian society had been built since the end of the USSR. This metamorphosis is entirely organized around a defense effort which will more than double between 2022 and 2024 to exceed 10% GDP, and which the Russian armies have been endowed with, for 2024, with a total budget of 13 trillion rubles out of the 36 billion of the state budget, or 600% of it.

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