Well, commandeering all the money from all bank accounts of people living in the Russia is quite a radical way to fund upgrades for a country. It will cause an unavoidable banking crisis that will destroy the country’s economy.
But 600 billion did indeed exist in cash and gold in early 2022. That could indeed have been used in the way you describe. But Putin had other plans.
At least 300 billion, that’s known. Or 600 billion, if you count the money frozen by western countries. That’s how much money they had in their development fund in early 2022, and all of that is now used.
But then, there are the preferential loans: The Russia needs cheap weapons, and that requires factories to sell their weapons far under the production costs. In order to enable that, the Russia has enacted a law that requires all commercial banks to give low-interest loans without any cautions to military industry. Those loans are not used for investing into anything, but only for paying for the workers’ salaries. That money will never be paid back to banks and apparently almost all the money of all commercial banks has been already used that way. So, you should add all the money any Russians have saved in their bank accounts in the number. I have no idea if that’s in tens or hundreds of billions.
It is not yet visible in the budgets, but eventually all Russian banks will go bankrupt because of that, and then it becomes a cost for the state. It is, de facto, money used by the Russian Federation as well. And it’s a lot.
I’d guess about one trillion dollar should be quite close to correct number if you also count the frozen assets and the preferential loans.
They just always begin with the apple, not with flour or baking table or somesuch. You’re adding the flour into a bowl that is… Next to the apple.