The Russian military-industrial complex suffers from many limitations. In light of the challenges highlighted in this paper, the OPK is likely to go through a steady period of decline marked by:
- The simplification of military production and procurement – particularly
for hardware;
- Lower production rates due to stretched production chains and reduced availability of machine-building tools and components;
- Reduced quality of outputs owing to a less skilled workforce and industrial
capacity; and
- ‘Innovation stagnation’ in military R&D, scientific research and advanced technologies.
All these factors point to a regression, or at least a gradual stagnation, of the OPK. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the imposition of sanctions in 2014, there has been little change in terms of Russia’s military-industrial output. What has changed, however, is the capacity of the OPK to support the ongoing demands of the war. For instance, components are increasingly produced with lesser quality, and high-quality machine-building tools are being replaced with inferior ones.
This situation may lead the OPK to adopt more ‘primitive’ production cycles and methods, and to a simplification of Russian military production towards well-known, easier-to-produce systems. Such a shift is already visible, for instance, in the refurbishment of Soviet-era equipment and the procurement of low-tech hardware. In this context, the Russian armed forces will increasingly depend on modified Soviet platforms, boosted by limited modern and advanced technological add-ons.
Yet these problems are not insurmountable for Russia. Russia’s military industry demonstrated its resilience in the years following the Soviet Union’s collapse and recovered from the decay of the 1990s. The OPK is equally resilient today. It remains able to sustain the minimum military-industrial and -scientific bases necessary to prosecute the war against Ukraine, provide weaponry for the war effort and ultimately recapitalize the country’s military hardware and modernize the armed forces in line with the next state armament programme for 2025–34.
The OPK will continue to muddle through and keep producing systems that are ‘good enough’ to pose a sustained threat to Ukraine. But being ‘good enough’ to sustain a war against Ukraine is not the same as being able to compete against NATO forces or China into the future.
The Russian military-industrial and the military-scientific bases will likely remain ‘good enough’ for the time being. In the long term, the technological gaps with Western/NATO countries (and China) will widen. This situation will make it harder for Russia to sustain competition with its adversaries.
It is hard to assess for how long the high rate of defence spending and military production will be kept up – especially if the war moves further towards diplomatic negotiations and/or if international sanctions against Russia are lowered or even removed. The OPK might be pressured to maintain production rates as an economic and political imperative by the Kremlin, in order to ensure a swift rearmament and regeneration of Russia’s military force. In any case, it will be some time before Russia’s defence spending drops to pre-2022 levels.
The same caveat applies to third-country imports of finished systems – it cannot be reliably predicted whether the OPK will seek to increase domestic production or continue to rely on imports from Iran, North Korea and others for entire segments of military procurement. But for now, Russia must maintain good relations with the trading partners it still has – particularly China, Iran and North Korea – to keep the latter option open.
As the reorientation of the OPK towards the production of civilian goods is not an option, a form of ‘demilitarization’ of military production towards dual-use products may be a viable post-war option. In any case, the OPK will require a ‘soft landing’ after the war ends – whenever that may be.
Sanctions will continue to have an impact on Russia’s military-industrial and -scientific bases. Researchers and policymakers in the West are starting to understand the dependencies and weaknesses of the OPK, and are even discussing the need to degrade entire parallel industrial segments to the military industry in the civilian world.
Western sanctions must be targeted equally at the short-term objective of degrading Russia’s ability to keep fighting and, in the longer term, at the complete decline of the OPK and associated civilian sectors. The overall goal would be to force Russia to ‘go cheap’ in areas where quality cannot be compromised and where being ‘good enough’ is not enough.
Efforts to accelerate the OPK’s decline could focus on strengthening the sanctions regime by applying tighter export control mechanisms (including closing existing loopholes), punishing external partners enabling Russia’s war, identifying and closing evasion mechanisms, and encouraging the ‘brain drain’ of potential workers and innovators.
There are, however, many unknowns surrounding the continuation of sanctions against Russia. At the time of writing, diplomatic uncertainty still remains between Moscow and Kyiv, with talks underway aimed at securing a potential ceasefire and a wider agreement on terms to end the war. The likelihood of sanctions relief for Russia is currently unclear. But if sanctions were to be loosened or even lifted, Russia’s ability to recapitalize military hardware and modernize its armed forces would be given a significant boost.
If Russia chose to maintain defence spending at its current high level for the foreseeable future, a ceasefire would also mean that the Kremlin obtains more ‘bang for its buck’ – a quicker pace of military procurement and modernization, alongside reduced battlefield demands and lower rates of attrition.
More research is necessary to understand which specific sectors of the OPK are worst hit by sanctions and the demands of the war, and which ones are doing comparatively better. In the context of the new state armament programme for 2025–34, it will be equally important to assess which sectors will fare better than others, especially if quality critical components or machine-building tools become sought-after commodities.
All of this suggests that the West’s ultimate goal must be to encourage the degradation of Russia’s military industry, reducing the overall threat from Russia by creating the conditions for further decline. In such a scenario, the Kremlin would eventually have to review its intentions to confront Western/NATO countries symmetrically in conventional and strategic competition. Such a policy would not prevent Moscow from waging low-intensity warfare entirely, but might render the Russian threat much more manageable, as a blunted military industry and shortages of advanced weapons systems would leave Russia unable to compete militarily in the long term.
