Moscow Spent about 150 Billion US Dollars to Occupy Just One Percent More of Ukrainian Territory over the Last 12 Months, Krichevskaya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 28 – There are many ways to construct a balance sheet about the costs of Putin’s war in Ukraine, including combat losses, the disordering of Russian life at home, and the further undermining of the international order in order to advance the Kremlin leader’s agenda including the seizure of Ukrainian territory.

            But Russian journalist Vera Krichevskaya offers one that does not capture all of these dimensions but highlights some of the direct costs as compared to the nominal Russian gains (facebook.com/vera.krichevskaya/posts/pfbid0RjBaFrnyR8p2sy6Lge7WYFNpy27VQzDRfNicB6tsj7zgCbXvBwSShCjfkx1mCV6ml reposted at echofm.online/opinions/itogi-2025-goda-v-kvadratnyh-kilometrah-i-v-dollarah).

            She points out that during 2025, Russian forces occupied between 4600 and 6600 square kilometers of Ukraine, just under one percent of the land of that country. But to do that, it spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 billion US dollars, an enormous sum given Russia’s needs for a relatively small territorial addition to the largest country in the world.  

            As she remarks in conclusion about such enormous spending with remarkably little gain “well, what’s there to comment?”