One chain, not one number

A government pays for a war out of revenue first, then by borrowing and spending its savings, and finally, if those run short, with new money. Russia's case is unusual because sanctions have closed most of the outside options: Western capital markets are shut to the Russian state, so almost everything has to be raised at home.

This monitor follows that financing as a chain of eight indicators, each with a role. Oil and gas revenue is the driver. The budget deficit is the burn rate. The liquid National Wealth Fund is the buffer. Money growth is the printing-press detector, and inflation is the last channel's output. Three more readings — regional budgets, unpaid bills between companies and rail freight — show whether the strain is spreading beyond the federal budget. This guide walks the chain in order; the live readings at the end show where each link stands today.

Oil and gas revenue: where the money starts

The finance ministry reports federal revenue in two parts: oil and gas revenue, and everything else. The first moves with forces outside the government's control, such as world prices and sanctions, and it is where the chain begins. Before the war the budget was built around that volatility: whenever the oil price rose above the cut-off set in the budget, the extra revenue was banked in the National Wealth Fund for a bad year.

The ministry publishes oil and gas revenue every month in its federal budget execution data. The monitor converts it into 2021 prices with Rosstat's consumer price index, adds up the latest twelve months and reads the result as a level against 2021, when revenue came to ₽9,027 billion, rather than as a growth rate. A rebound from a weak year can look like strength while the level is still far below where it was before the war.

The first year of the war shows how far the level can swing. In May 2022 the twelve-month total peaked at 120.5% of its 2021 real level, a score of 141 on the monitor's scale; the whole series is on the indicator page. The registered trouble line is half the 2021 level. More in the guide to oil and gas revenues.

The deficit: how fast the gap opens

When spending runs ahead of revenue, the difference is the deficit. The monitor treats it as the burn rate: the gap over the latest twelve months as a share of GDP, built from the same monthly ministry data. 2021, the last full year before the war, closed with a small surplus of ₽524.3 billion, or 0.34% of GDP, and that surplus is the pre-war anchor. The trouble line is a deficit of 10% of GDP.

A wider deficit can come from falling revenue or from faster spending; the deficit does not say which, only how large a hole the rest of the chain has to fill. Tax rises and spending cuts shrink that hole directly. The VAT rate of 22%, in force from 2026, is one example; the methodology estimates its annual yield at about ₽1.7 trillion. Such measures need no indicator of their own: they show up in the deficit once they reach the data. More in the guide to the budget deficit.

Borrowing at home: OFZ bonds

The ordinary way to cover a deficit is to borrow. With Western markets closed, Russia borrows at home by selling OFZ, federal loan bonds, to banks and funds at the finance ministry's weekly auctions. The ministry publishes every auction result against a quarterly borrowing plan that it sets itself.

This monitor tracked how much of that plan was actually sold until 22 August 2026, then retired the indicator. Placement shows how the deficit is financed, not whether Russia can pay for the war: when auctions fall short, the deficit lands on the reserve fund, which the monitor measures directly, so the two readings moved as one. The ratio also depended on a plan the ministry writes for itself and rewrote mid-year. The reasoning is in the amendment record.

Borrowing can also look healthier than it is. When state banks are pressed into buying bonds, with the central bank's repo operations behind them, auctions place well while the deficit is in effect financed with new money. Russia used this scheme in 2022. That is why this monitor looks for it in the money supply, not in the auction calendar. More in the guide to OFZ bonds.

The National Wealth Fund: the buffer

When revenue and borrowing leave a gap, the money comes from savings: the National Wealth Fund, built up from the oil windfalls of better years. The finance ministry publishes the fund's size every month on its NWF statistics page.

The headline total overstates what can be spent. Part of the fund is liquid: foreign currency and gold held at the central bank, which the ministry can sell for roubles. The rest is shares in state companies, infrastructure loans and money already spent on domestic projects. That part cannot pay a contractor at short notice, so the monitor tracks only the liquid part. On 1 February 2022, just before the full-scale invasion, it stood at $113.5 billion, according to the monitor's reconstruction from the ministry's monthly data. The registered trouble line is $20 billion; below that level the fund is a cash float rather than a cushion.

One distortion is worth knowing: the fund is counted in dollars but the deficit it covers is in roubles, so a weaker rouble mechanically makes the same dollars cover more of the gap, as the methodology explains. More in the guide to the National Wealth Fund.

Bank credit and money growth

If the deficit is still not covered, the remaining route is new money. State banks can lend more than genuine saving supports, or buy government bonds with central-bank funding; either way, broad money grows faster. The central bank publishes broad money, M2, every month in its monetary statistics.

The monitor reads M2's year-on-year growth rate and calls it the printing-press detector. Its pre-war anchor is 10% a year, the measured 2015–2021 average; the trouble line is 30% a year. A faster reading is a statistical signal, not proof that any particular payment was made with new money; it is watched because money created to carry a deficit remains visible in the central bank's own series. More in the guide to M2 money supply.

Inflation: where households pay

Inflation is the last link: the point at which pressure from faster money growth can become visible to every household. Rosstat publishes the consumer price index monthly on its prices page.

The monitor reads the year-on-year rate rather than the price level, because prices do not return to their pre-war level but the pace of increase can. The pre-war anchor is 4.6% a year, the average of Rosstat's own December-to-December figures for 2017–2021. The trouble line is 40% a year, the inflation-crisis threshold from the economic-growth literature (Bruno and Easterly, 1998). More in the guide to inflation.

Beyond the federal budget

Three more readings watch the edges of the chain.

What the chain cannot tell you

The eight readings measure the capacity to finance the war, not the war itself. They do not measure military spending directly, and they do not predict how long the war will last or when anything will break. A low reading is not a date.

Some coping resources sit outside the chain on purpose, because they are not published as regular series or are one-offs: the central bank's own gold and yuan, treasury cash balances, delayed payments and asset sales. The methodology lists them and explains why each is left out.

The data themselves are thinning: more than 900 official Russian datasets have been hidden since 2022. When a source this monitor reads stops publishing, the indicator shows as unknown rather than carrying the last number forward; a source going dark is itself a signal.

How to read the live numbers

Each indicator below is scored on the same scale: 100 is its registered pre-war anchor, 0 its registered trouble line, and a reading can go past either end. The anchors were fixed in advance and are not moved to flatter a reading. The strength index combines the eight scores into a single number.