Posted on 04/12/2025 9:46:10 AM PDT by Libloather
WASHINGTON — Russia could be forced to end the war in Ukraine because it will run out of money to pay its troops, according to experts at the DC-based Institute for the Study of War.
The country has burned through roughly half of its $106 billion liquid sovereign-wealth fund, which is used to pay troops’ salaries and new recruits bonuses, experts said.
Moscow can likely only afford another 12 to 16 months of fighting at its current pace, with about 30,000 to 45,000 Russian troops killed or injured in Ukraine each month since its 2022 invasion began, ISW’s Russia team lead George Barros told The Post.
“The system for generating fighters worked for 2.5 years but it’s starting to fail,” he said Friday. “Russia is constrained by the laws of economics, scarce resources, and there isn’t an endless manpower resource in Russia.”
The Kremlin’s cash has dwindled as troop salaries and recruiting bonuses balloon amid staggering inflation, according to Russian Finance Ministry data.
Even President Trump weighed in on Moscow’s prospects Friday, noting in a Truth Social post that “Russia has to get moving” on ending its war because “too many people (are) DYING, thousands a week.”
That reality could create an opening for the US to push Russian President Vladimir Putin harder for a peace deal. Putin has been stalling negotiations after rejecting Trump’s full cease-fire proposal — a deal Ukraine already agreed to — a month ago.
“The United States can use the enormous challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to secure critical concessions in ongoing negotiations to end the war by continuing and even expanding military support to Ukraine,” ISW’s Christina Harward wrote in a recent report.
Reluctant fighters
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
As long as Western Europe buys oil and gas from Russia Russia will have the money.
Now if the US were to flood the world market with cheap oil then Russia is cooked.
1) Russia was running out of ammo and missiles every couple of week during the first six months of the war that Russia was running out of ammo and missiles.
2) That Putin was dead and Russia was using a body double in his place or that he was dying of stomach, thyroid, blood or some other kind of cancer.
3) That sanctions would leave the Russian economy in tatters, all while Russia's economy expanded at 3.9% rate last year.
You, the ISW and your sources have been consistently WRONG.
What’s he got to do with this claim?
**“Don’t listen to idiot politicians that say we’ve degraded the Russian army. No, we have chewed up a lot of material. The Russian army has gotten infinitely smarter.”
Russia is adapting, not crumbling**
Eric Prince.
Pooty will just ‘promise’ to pay the troops.
“3) That sanctions would leave the Russian economy in tatters, all while Russia’s economy expanded at 3.9% rate last year.”
LOL!. Expanded due to military spending left as trash on the battlefield.
Don’t trust Russian data.
Money obtained from their old age pension fund.
“You, the ISW and your sources have been consistently WRONG.”
Yes, your source that said the war would be over in two weeks was wrong.
Wait till the Russians find out there is no money for their pensions.
———-
All my contacts in Russia ( I worked there for three years) are receiving their Pensions fine. In addition, they travel free on all trains, buses, metro, they get a free ticket on Aeroflot once a year. They don’t pay for medical care, and most not taxed when retired.
Their debt to GDP is 17 percent, not the 120 percent plus the US has…the US will go bankrupt way before Russia.
More reason to pull the plug on Z. Keep oil price low, get deal with EU to sell them LNG. Russia will not be able to bring in as much money from oil. Russia’s demographics are horrible as it is. Russia has a smaller population than Bangladesh. The only country with worse demographics is Ukraine.
It’s not bad for US if both countries race towards irrelevance and oblivion.
If you want to bring economic pressure on Russia the answer was always Drill Baby Drill!
Biden refused to do that.
With oil below $69.00 things are going to get much harder for Russia they weren’t that good in the first place.
Just hire more North Koreans. They’ll work for borscht and kopeks.
No because rich Russians were forced to keep and invest their money in Russia and because Russia had no problem finding other buyers for their oil and natural resources, which third parties sold back to the morons in Europe at higher prices.
Russia is getting everything it wanted out of this war -- the annexed territory, a land bridge to Crimea, control of almost the entire Black Sea coastline and removal of NATO from Ukraine.
The intelligence services propaganda article spam continues.
What goes around comes around. The Russians did the same thing to Napoleon when he chased them into Russia as the Russians retreated (?).
wy69
Sorry, Russians will keep an army in Ukraine if they must eat grass. The Four Provinces are Russian now and they will never leave.
Thanks for the update, tovarich.
“They don’t pay for medical care, and most not taxed when retired.”
Russia is in shambles. Specialized hospitals have been converted to treat see wounded.
Doctors have to take second jobs to survive.
Doctors have been moved into occupied regions.
12% of schools have no running water.
Putin can save the retirement system by moving the male element age to 65. The male life expectancy is 67.
“Russia had no problem finding other buyers for their oil and natural resources, which third parties sold back to the morons in Europe at higher prices.”
China is soaking Russia.
Without the war, Russia could have been selling the oil at the higher prices.
As it is now, Russia is draining their NWF to finance their battlefield causualties.
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