The German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe unexpectedly arrived in Moscow at the end of August and delivered a grim warning to the Russian leadership about the state of the economy. According to the publication, he cited data from U.S. intelligence and tried to convince the Kremlin that Russia would not be able to win the war in Ukraine economically, a war that has already reached a stalemate on the front line.
A senior diplomat familiar with the information the United States had shared with Western partners told FAZ that Ratcliffe linked this conclusion to the risk for Russia of repeating the collapse of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. According to the source, this was the main reason for the CIA chief’s visit.
The same source claims that Ratcliffe also explained to his interlocutors the position of Donald Trump’s administration on Ukraine. According to him, Washington does not intend to abandon support for Kyiv, while Trump himself insists on negotiations.
The publication also cites estimates of the military burden on the Russian economy. Since the start of the invasion, the war has already cost Russian taxpayers 57 trillion rubles, and the government is budgeting another one-third increase in military spending in next year’s draft budget, to 17.1 trillion rubles.
According to the same calculations, military spending could reach 50 trillion rubles over three years, and the total cost of the invasion — 74 trillion rubles, or $870 billion; if hostilities continue in 2028, the amount could rise to $1 trillion. FAZ writes that the “national defense” item now accounts for 30% of budget expenditures, and in next year’s draft the Finance Ministry has set it at 35%, whereas in the USSR’s 1990 budget, “military purposes” accounted for 29.4%.
The publication adds that after the 2023–2024 military boom, economic growth in Russia has practically stalled, civilian industries have been declining for two years in a row, and tens of trillions of rubles in loans issued by banks for military production are becoming problematic and are not being repaid on time. For comparison, the archive of former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar states that the USSR’s 1990 budget allocated 71 billion rubles out of 241.3 billion for “military purposes”.
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