Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-future.html

About half of the country’s federal budget goes toward the fight in Ukraine, money that does little to support its long-term development.

For four years, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has made the war against Ukraine the lodestar of his every move.

The single-minded approach has helped Mr. Putin salvage what began as a disastrous invasion, get his troops back on the front foot and dictate demands in peace talks mediated by Washington.

But his stubborn pursuit of the war has come at a huge cost. It has killed or wounded as many as 1.2 million Russians, by some estimates, while reordering Russia’s economy and society in ways that many economists believe jeopardize the nation’s future.

“You have lots of money spent on tanks, shells, bombs, military benefits and other things — no long-lasting value, nothing that works on what we call development,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

MBFC
Archive

If Russia were to win the war - big if - then the cost is well worth it.

If Russia doesn't win, its the end of Putin.

I think Putin understands that so hecan't really back down.

You have lots of money spent on tanks, shells, bombs, military benefits and other things — no long-lasting value, nothing that works on what we call development

This is key IMO! If you look past the official numbers, to see what happens in reality, it is very obvious that the Russian economy is shrinking dramatically. The war may be as much as 35% of the total Russian economy. Military was probably less than 10% before the war.
So even if the total economy is equal (it is shrinking), it means Russians have lost 25% for everything else, like hospitals, roads, private economy etc.
This will have an impact on the Russian economy for decades of lower investment and lower income for ordinary Russians.
Russia today is clearly way poorer than they were 4 years ago.

He (Putin) has no vision for the future but only a vision for the past,

Spot on.

It also cost them their best customer, Europe. Russia is a gangster run petrostate, and fossil fuels are on their way out permanently. The time it had to maximize the temporary rewards of fossil fuel development and invest it in a future Russia was squandered. Europe, with little exception will permanently divest from fossil fuels and this war has only sped up that process. They aren't coming back as a customer in any meaningful sense even after this war. European countries that learned to live temporarily without Russian fossil fuels will prefer to keep it that way.

Is this another one of those 'Russia days away from collapse' stories?

Well, Russia is close to collapse, yes. Not days, for sure, but close enough. Ignore the lost money for a second, Russia lost 1.2 million abled men, plus god only knows howany wounded on top of that ((typically at least the same number, or more. So let's call that 2.5 million men that will no longer be contributing to the economy, and about a million that will now much leech your economy (blinded, lost limbs, etc) with medical needs.

Russia has, say, 150M people. Say, 60% is working age, so 90M people of working age. Russia lost some 2-3% of that. That is not a small "oopsie we'll fix it in post later", this is an "oopsie we're fucked" level

And that is just the dead and wounded. Russia blew through its savings, it barely has a military left to protect itself from other big players like China. Literally it's only defence, currently, are it's nukes and with all the corruption there, it's highly doubtful that those are still functional in amounts high enough to be a credible defense.

So no savings, a huge cut in its workforce, it made itself the pariah of the world...

Yeah, Russia is fine tomorrow.

But next year? 5 years from now?

Russia is fuuuuuucked

That 1.2m figure is casualties, not deaths.

I don't think it's worth it anymore. If they had succeeded with occupying Ukraine in a swift strike, it would have been worth it. Now, even if they accomplish their goals (losing 1000+ men for 50 meters per day - that means 350000 casualties for 17 kilometers per year - lets me suspect that they will run out of soldiers before that happens), they are looking at a territory with a long lasting resistance movement that can blend into your native population culturally and the continued isolation of Russia. That means the only way forward for them would be the next war.

Oh thank God, that is so much better and makes all the difference

But yeah, it makes little difference

For anyone else not knowing exactly what the point being made is:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casualty

(military) A person in military service who becomes unavailable for duty, for any reason (notably death, injury, illness, capture, or desertion).

The thing is, Russia never runs out of soldiers to send into the meat grinder.

It's been the Russian military tactic for hundreds of years. Throw bodies at the enemy until they somehow win. Even if it takes years or decades of fighting.

It's not a smart tactic, and has seriously fucked up their population demographics to this day, but it is the Russian tactic. The thing is, it usually works.

I can't keep working, but the fear is that it might work this time as well.

Russia is fucked either way, we should rename the Pyrrhic victory.

Thank you for that. TIL

All of Russian history can be summed up in just five words:

"And then, things got worse..."

Russia has enough nukes that 99% could fail and it'd still wreck your country. It is still a legitimate deterrent and always will be.

They’ve also figured out the resistance thing - just relocate Ukrainians at gunpoint across all of Russia and they’ll no longer be a problem. Or even more simply just murder them all. They had to pretend that wasn’t an option at the beginning of the war, not so much now