Russia triples prosthetics budget amid skyrocketing war disabilities
Russia has tripled its procurement of prosthetics, a direct consequence of the escalating number of Russian military disabilities on the Ukrainian front, which is now estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, The Moscow Times reports.
The human cost of the conflict is evident in government spending. The 2026 budget has allocated a massive 98.1 billion rubles for "providing technical means of rehabilitation for persons with disabilities," noted Yanis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security Affairs. This investment marks a threefold increase in the public procurement of prosthetics compared to the pre-war period.
Timur Grishin, a member of the Russian Guild of Prosthetists-Orthopedists, previously underscored the direct link between this surge and the war. "There, of course, there are numerous traumas that require prosthetics and all technical means of rehabilitation," Grishin specified. He added a critical note: "The number of people with ordinary disabilities has not increased. Unfortunately, they are now offered much fewer means of rehabilitation."
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS estimates) that by the end of 2024, 376,000 Russians had suffered serious injuries on the front and become invalids. Between 2022 and 2024, the IISS calculates that 172,000 Russian military personnel died, and 611,000 were wounded. Of the wounded, only 235,000 are considered recoverable, with the remainder becoming permanently disabled.
The severity of the injuries is stark. A senior Russian official, familiar with the statistics, previously told The New York Times that every second seriously wounded soldier faced limb amputation. Based on IISS calculations, the number of amputee invalids among those returning from the front could potentially exceed 180,000.
This crisis is reflected in Social Fund data: the total number of people with disabilities in Russia increased by 290,000 in 2023–2024, a record surge since 2005. As of early 2025, a staggering 11.1 million people with disabilities were registered nationwide.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
