Moscow mayor rejects calls for wartime economy, says it will destroy the country

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest political allies has pushed back against growing calls to place Russia’s entire economy on a wartime footing, arguing that sacrificing the civilian economy would ultimately undermine Moscow’s war effort.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, the leading candidate on the ruling United Russia party’s list for September’s State Duma elections, warned that a fully militarised economy would “destroy the country”. His remarks come as some lawmakers increasingly advocate a “mobilisation economy” in response to Ukraine’s deepening drone campaign and Russia’s slowing economic growth.

Speaking to Russian state television Rossiya 24 and in a separate interview with TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov, Sobyanin dismissed proposals to redirect the entire economy towards military production as economically illiterate.

“We constantly hear that the whole economy should be mobilised and put on a war footing,” Sobyanin said. “But a modern economy works differently. If there is no civilian economy, there will be no taxes, no household income, and the political situation will be completely different. Then we will not succeed in the war.”

He added that “to destroy normal economic life is, in fact, to destroy the entire country”, describing calls for a full wartime economy as “useless” and “worthless” arguments made by people who “do not understand how a modern economy and modern warfare function”.

Sobyanin argued that modern conflicts are fought simultaneously on the battlefield and through maintaining “a healthy, stable national economy”, without which military victory would be impossible.

The Moscow mayor is one of Russia’s most influential politicians and has long been regarded as a trusted member of Putin’s inner circle. He heads the federal electoral list of the Kremlin’s ruling United Russia party ahead of the September parliamentary elections and has governed Moscow since 2010.

Debate over a “mobilisation economy”

Sobyanin’s intervention follows renewed calls from several Russian lawmakers to place the economy fully under state direction.

Nikolai Arefyev, first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on economic policy, argued this week that Russia should have adopted a mobilisation economy long ago.

“If we want to overcome the crisis, we must introduce a mobilisation economy managed by the government in the interests of the entire state, not just individual people,” Arefyev said, arguing that Western sanctions would remain in place even after the fighting ends.

Similar demands came from Andrey Kolesnik, a member of the Duma’s defence committee, who called for the economy to be shifted onto “war rails”. He justified the proposal by pointing to the growing number of Ukrainian drone strikes inside Russia.

Sobyanin acknowledged that such attacks have intensified significantly in recent months.

“Overall, of all the attacks carried out on Russian territory almost every day, around two-thirds of the drones are heading towards Moscow,” he said.

His comments are notable because senior Russian officials have generally sought to project confidence that the economy can simultaneously sustain both military spending and domestic living standards.

Mounting economic strain

The debate comes against the backdrop of increasingly visible economic difficulties.

At the end of July, Russia’s central bank cut its 2026 GDP growth forecast to between zero and 1%, while the Ministry of Economic Development reported that annual economic growth slowed to just 0.3% in May.

The country’s fuel sector has also come under growing pressure following repeated Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. Petroleum product output reportedly fell by 21.8% year-on-year in June, prompting dozens of Russian regions to introduce restrictions on gasoline sales.

According to Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), cited by the independent Russian outlet The Insider, Russian military spending reached a record RUB 5.9 trillion (€63.5 billion) during the first quarter of 2026, almost 30% higher than a year earlier. That increase contrasts with earlier government budget plans that envisaged lower defence spending.

International analysts have also become increasingly pessimistic about Russia’s economic outlook.

In June, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) concluded that Russia’s economy had become exhausted after more than four years of full-scale war against Ukraine.

Days later, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing European intelligence assessments, reported that Russia’s economy was in an “explosive state”, warning that another major external shock – such as tougher sanctions on Russian banks or a prolonged fall in global oil prices, could trigger a much deeper economic crisis.

The article in Polish by EUalive’s partner FocusEurope.pl can be found here.

Caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with the Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, 9 February 2026. EPA/VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL