Russia Will Be Paying for Its War on Ukraine Long After It Ends

Russia will be paying for its invasion of Ukraine for years to come even if the fighting ended tomorrow, as the government plugs a widening gap in the military budget with increasingly costly borrowing.

As US President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to end the war, the future bill for Moscow keeps growing. In one of the final bond auctions of the year, the government on Wednesday issued 108.9 billion rubles ($1.36 billion) in debt known as OFZ, taking the total for 2025 so far to 7.9 trillion rubles, sharply surpassing the previous record set in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.