Russian defense production is starting to get really worrying

While Ukraine has been working hard to convince its international partners and allies to supply the arms, ammunition, and equipment needed to defend its territory from Russia, Moscow took a different approach to supplying its military. 

For two years, Russia has been revamping its industrial production capability and the country now can produce a lot more weapons and ammunition than Western experts thought Moscow would be able to make at the onset of war. 

A worrying example of just how dedicated Russia is to its arms industry can be found in the amount of money Moscow is spending on defense, which has risen to an estimated 7.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) The Guardian reported. 

Russian defense spending may not sound like a lot when weighed against the GDP of the country, but the Kremlin’s 2024 budget puts Moscow’s total spending on defense at $109 billion, which is 29.4% or about one-third of all government spending for the year Reuters noted in October 2023. 

“The budget’s structure shows that the main emphasis is on ensuring our victory — the Army, defense capability, armed forces, fighters. Everything needed for the front, everything needed for victory, is in the budget,” explained Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov according to Defense News. 

In order to sustain production into the foreseeable future, the Kremlin has redesigned its supply chains in order to evade international sanctions. Factories in Russia are working to produce as much as possible according to some insiders. 

For example, Rostec is one of Russia’s leading defense industry conglomerates and its CEO Sergei Chemezov revealed to The Russian News Agency (TASS) in January that its factories were working hard to fulfill the country’s needs.  

“Rostec’s factories involved in fulfilling state contracts are working almost around the clock and their staff are showing self-sacrifice and understanding in relation to the increased workload,” Chemezov explained according to The Moscow Times. 

In November 2023, Vladimir Putin met with a number of defense industry leaders and government officials, urging them to increase their output of quality military equipment according to a transcript of the Russian President’s comments. 

Defense spending has become the central aspect of Russia’s economy. The Guardian noted that Putin claimed 520,000 new jobs have been created in the country’s defense sector, which now employs a total of 3.5 million Russians. 

“We still haven’t seen where is Russia’s breaking point,” said Mark Riisik, the Estonian Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Department, which is under Estonia’s Defense Ministry, before explaining the state of Russian defense spending. 

“Basically one-third of their national budget is going on military production and on the war in Ukraine … But we don’t know when it will actually impact on society. So it’s a little bit challenging to say when will this stop,” Riisik revealed. 

One important metric being used to gauge Russian production prowess is the number of artillery shells that Russia can produce. Estimates from one Western official who spoke with the New York Times put the figure at about 2 million in September 2023.

The New York Times noted producing 2 million shells a year was double what Western intelligence services thought Moscow could reasonably produce before the invasion of Ukraine, and that number is expected to increase over the next few years. 

The Guardian reported that experts believe Russian artillery shell production could run up to 4 million units annually in the next year or two, which is a situation that would not favor Ukraine in an attritional struggle dependent on artillery to make gains. 

“It’s a lot higher than we expected, really,” Riisik told to The Guardian about Moscow’s production numbers. How this will affect Ukraine is not yet known, but it won’t be good if the country’s allies cannot supply Kyiv with the help it needs to defend against Russia.