Russian businessmen have allocated nearly $4.5 billion to finance the war in Ukraine

Russian businessmen have allocated about $4.5 billion to finance the war in Ukraine.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin called on big business to make "voluntary contributions" to the country's budget to support the war in Ukraine, hundreds of billions of rubles have flowed into the federal budget. According to Deutsche Welle, citing the "Electronic Budget", by mid-August these funds had reached 383.69 billion rubles (more than $4.5 billion).

It is noted that this figure for the first seven and a half months of 2026 exceeded the total revenue for the entire year 2025 (251.3 billion rubles) by 1.5 times. In March, Putin held a closed meeting with business representatives. According to The Bell, at the meeting, Putin offered to help entrepreneurs with the budget.

Before the meeting, only 15.6 billion rubles had been received from non-governmental organizations. In April alone, the volume of "charities" increased tenfold, reaching 159.7 billion rubles. In May, this figure increased by another 45.5 percent (to 232.3 billion), in June by 27 percent (to 294.4 billion), and in July and the first half of August by another 30 percent.

It turned out that Putin made a speech at the congress of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Russia. He spoke in the spirit of "We said we would fight" and "We will go to the borders of Donbass." According to sources, "the idea of receiving contributions from big businesses during this difficult period for the country came from Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin."

According to two sources, businessman Suleiman Karimov promised to transfer 100 billion rubles directly during the meeting. At least one other businessman supported the initiative, without specifying the exact amount.

Meanwhile, attacks from Ukraine continue. In particular, the country launched more than 600 drones into the city of Moscow and the region on August 18.