The cost of the war in Ukraine forces Russian regions to reduce compensation paid to families of fallen soldiers

New sign of Russia's critical budgetary situation. Several regions of the country are forced to sharply reduce compensation paid to the families of soldiers who died in Ukraine, a Russian official told Bloomberg. Their finances are degraded by the exponential increase in military spending by the federal state. If the aid of 5 million rubles (50,000 euros) paid by the State to bereaved families remains in force, the subjects of the Russian Federation, the name given to the federated entities, must cut back on their own payments.

At the end of April, the Republic of Bashkiria reduced its compensation from 2 million rubles (more than 20,000 euros) to 100,000 rubles (around 1,000 euros). Saratov Oblast cut its aid by 90%, from 1 million to 100,000 rubles, while in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, compensation fell from 3 million to 1 million rubles, according to local media. The Samara region went so far as to completely eliminate its one million ruble system, “in order to ensure the balance of the regional budget and eliminate duplication in social assistance measures”, justifies its governor in a decree. In total, around ten regions have removed or reduced their systems.

After the launch of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the regions began to offer generous aid, following a certain logic of competition, which is now coming to an end. Regional budgets, which showed a cumulative surplus of 50.6 billion rubles in 2022, recorded a deficit of 1,540 billion in 2025, and the number of deficit regions increased from 49 to 73 between these two years.

The budgetary situation of the federal state is also delicate, weighed down by the increase in military spending, which represented 30% of the budget in 2026 according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, but also by the slowdown in growth, expected around 0.6% this year compared to 4.5% in 2024. This budgetary hole should lead Russia to devote 15% of its GDP to repaying its public debt over the next decade, according to Bloomberg.