The strength index is this monitor's single number for how much of Russia's pre-war financial strength for waging the war remains — a thermometer built from eight indicators, each placed on a common anchor scale. The level-based components are compared with a registered pre-war level, while inflation and money growth use registered pre-war rates.
Why a scale, not a single verdict
Comparing a reading with the previous year can be misleading: a rebound from a weak year can look healthy even when the level remains below its pre-war point. For each component, 100 marks its registered pre-war anchor and 0 its registered trouble line. The scale is not capped: a component can score above 100 or below 0. Every pair of anchors is fixed in advance and explained on the methodology page; it does not move in response to a reading.
The eight components, and how they chain together
Oil and gas revenue is the driver: when it weakens, the budget deficit — the burn rate — tends to widen, and the liquid National Wealth Fund is the buffer drawn down to cover it. When revenue, borrowing, and reserves all fall short, the remaining route shows up in the money supply, the printing-press detector, and eventually in inflation, the last channel's output.
Overdue receivables provide transmission in money terms, while RZD rail loading provides physical confirmation. Both are harder for state communications to manage than a published ratio. Regional budgets add the second front of the budget below the federal level. Together, the eight cover the financing chain from its source to where it becomes visible to ordinary households.
How the components become one index
The index starts from the plain mean of the components available in a month; it has no adjustable weights. Its published path is chain-linked, so a component appearing or disappearing does not move the index by itself: each monthly step uses only the components present in both months. The methodology shows the plain mean and coverage alongside the published line, including the treatment of missing data.
Indicator classes govern the separate trigger, not the weight of a component in the index. State-published physical or self-evident measures can contribute to a trigger in a pair, while class-3 prices and ratios only confirm. The full grouping is in the methodology's class breakdown.
The siren and the thermometer
The index is a thermometer on a scale anchored at 0 and 100, but able to extend beyond both. A trigger is a separate siren: it fires only when registered conditions on individual indicators are met, not simply because the index has fallen. The distinction matters: the monitor can show a low reading without a trigger, because the two answer different questions.