By
Moscow plans to spend 100 billion rubles (around €1 billion) on prosthetics in 2026 as its war against Ukraine drives up the number of Russians with disabilities.
The fund is three times what Moscow typically spent on prosthetics in the pre-war period, Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, posted on X.
In its 2021 budget, Russia allocated 33 billion rubles (around €350 million) for the purchase of prosthetics. Since then, the allocated amount has increased every year.
In early September, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anna Tsivilyova told a conference in the eastern city of Vladivostok that disabled soldiers coming back from the battlefield had become a “driver” in pushing Russia’s innovation in prosthetics.
“We are probably leading in this direction now,” she said at the Eastern Economic Forum, adding that “it is precisely the participants in the special military operation who have allowed us to reach such a priority flagship level.”
That matches a recent study by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, which puts Russian military deaths at up to 250,000 and total casualties, including the wounded, at over 950,000.
The New York Times cited a senior Russian official in early 2024 as saying that amputees represented more than half of Russians who had been seriously wounded.
It is grimly ironic, then, that while most sectors of Russia’s economy have stalled, the prosthetics industry is thriving. Over 150,00 artificial limbs were distributed in 2024 – a 53% increase over 2023, according to Russia’s Labor Ministry.
-1.png "Gaza Fund (1)-1")
