“Money from the main fund of the Russian Federation should run out by the end of the year.”, — write: www.unian.ua
Money from the main fund of the Russian Federation should run out by the end of the year.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation plans to cover the budget deficit at the expense of the National Welfare Fund / photo ua.depositphotos.comRussia’s revenues from the sale of oil and gas this year may turn out to be “much lower” than the planned level. This is reported by The Moscow Times with reference to the statement of the Deputy Minister of Finance of the aggressor country, Volodymyr Kolychev.
The main reason is low prices for Russian oil, the price of which has fallen to a five-year low. In December, the average cost of a barrel of Urals was $39, while the Russian budget set a price of $59.
Moreover, local suppliers are forced to offer discounts of up to 50% to sell oil to India and China. Thus, Russia will receive 420 billion rubles (about 5.5 billion dollars) from oil and gas taxes in January. This is a sharp decrease compared to December – the amount is 46% less.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation plans to cover the deficit at the expense of the National Welfare Fund. As a result, some analysts expect that the Fund will run out of money already this year.
As of the beginning of the year, the FNB had 4.1 trillion rubles ($54 billion) of unspent funds. In order to cover the shortfall in revenues from oil and gas, the authorities will have to withdraw about 3 trillion rubles, and another 700 billion rubles will go to investments. So the Fund will have only 400 billion rubles ($5.3 billion), which will be enough for three to four days of Russian budget expenditures.
Last year, Russia’s budget deficit amounted to 5.7 trillion rubles ($75 billion), which was five times worse than the Ministry of Finance’s initial calculations. In 2026, the government expects a deficit of 3.8 trillion rubles ($50 billion). To do this, the Russian Federation will increase VAT, taxes for small businesses, technology levy on equipment and electronics, as well as shake out fines from its own citizens and businesses by 300 billion rubles. Despite this, analysts are skeptical and estimate Russia’s future budget deficit in 2026 at 5-5.5 trillion rubles ($72 billion) due to excessive spending and reduced export revenues.
Economy of Russia – the latest newsIt is increasingly difficult for Russia to find money for the war against Ukraine, so Vladimir Putin has decided to significantly increase tax pressure this year. Thus, the consumption tax rate for Russians has increased from 20% to 22%, which should bring an additional 12.3 billion dollars to the budget of the aggressor country.
Russia also actively uses the mechanism of confiscation of foreign assets, but then does not know what to do with them. Yes, last year a record 40 billion dollars worth of assets were seized, but privatization consistently does not bring the desired results and money.
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