>I believe Germany recently pledged to raise it's military spending to 100 billion (a lot of flashy headlines but couldn't find details), so soon it will far outspend Russia.

Not to 100 billion, by 100 billion. Euros that is.

https://www-tagesschau-de.translate.goog/inland/innenpolitik...

They want to do a one time invest of 100bn and raise permanently to 2% of GDP.

You cannot compare those numbers. Cost of living is very different in Germany and the UK compared to Russia. Personnel costs make up for most of the German budget and a Russian soldier earns only a fraction of a German soldier.

While that is a factor, I can also imagine that Russia has more cost due to the size of the country and the amount of hardware they have to maintain within that budget. The other countries are a lot more compact and focused, both in terms of landmass and the amount of hardware.

Just looking at the land mass is probably misleading too. Most of the population is in the western part of Russia. As soon as you get to the mountains and Siberia there is simply not much there.

Sure, but I don’t think the person you’re replying to was forgetting this point.

Germany will have greater personnel cost, yes. In other areas, Russia will have a greater cost burden. For example, they don’t share defense resources with other nations (I.e. no. NATO equivalent).

The person you’re replying to is simply stating that Germany’s higher personnel cost does not nullify the effectiveness of relative strength of the German military versus the Russians.

Russia has way lower wages on the other hand, meaning for domestic military spending, they get much further with that budget.

> they get much further with that budget.

Not when you pay for corruption :)