The verdict is simple: Russia cannot afford military expenditures at such scale in the long-run. “The modern Russian economy just does not generate enough resources to finance the current 2011-2020 rearmament program. This seriously reduces the ability to efficiently renew the Russian armed forces’ equipment,” a recent analysis by the Moscow-based defense think tank CAST notes.

The only way for Russia to currently finance its growing military expenditure is to tap into the country’s reserve fund – money the Kremlin put aside over the last few years when oil prices were high and meant to cushion the economy against shocks. With the help of the reserve fund – worth approximately six percent of the country’s total GDP – Russia could maintain a 3.7% deficit for less than two years, according to the economist Sergei Guriev.

Yet, this calculation may perhaps be too optimistic, the Russian-born scholar admits, given the Kremlin’s exorbitant spending on defense: “Russia has already spent more than half of its total military budget for 2015. At this rate, its reserve fund will be emptied before the end of the year.”