{"id":464627,"date":"2026-02-07T15:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/464627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:20:16","slug":"russias-january-budget-deficit-hits-nearly-half-of-annual-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/464627\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s January Budget Deficit Hits Nearly Half of Annual Target"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s federal budget posted a deficit of 1.718 trillion rubles ($22.3 billion) in January, nearly half of its full-year target, according to Finance Ministry data published<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

Budget revenues totaled 2.362 trillion rubles ($30.7 billion) for the month, down 11.6% from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas revenues fell by 50% to a five-year low of 393 billion rubles ($5.1 billion).<\/p>\n

Non-oil and gas tax revenues rose 4.5% to 1.969 trillion rubles ($25.6 billion).<\/p>\n

Value-added tax receipts jumped almost 25% to 1.13 trillion rubles ($14.7 billion) following an increase in the VAT rate to 22% from Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

These were insufficient to offset the sharp decline in energy income, even as the Finance Ministry slightly reduced spending by 1.4% to 4.08 trillion rubles ($53.0 billion).<\/p>\n

As a result, the January deficit exceeded that of January 2025 by 17%.<\/p>\n

Overall, Russia\u2019s budget deficit has reached 17.4 trillion rubles ($226.2 billion) since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Finance Ministry data.<\/p>\n

The Finance Ministry attributed the large early-year deficit to front-loaded spending.<\/p>\n

Its 2026 budget sees the annual shortfall narrowing to 3.8 trillion rubles ($49.4 billion) in 2026 from 5.7 trillion rubles ($74.1 billion) last year.<\/p>\n

However, a slump in prices for Russian crude and difficulties exporting oil to India could cause the deficit to exceed the plan by nearly threefold, a government source told<\/a> Reuters.<\/p>\n

Internal calculations show the shortfall could reach anywhere from 3.5% to 4.4% of GDP as oil and gas revenues fall well short of projections and military spending rises, Reuters\u2019 source said.<\/p>\n

The Finance Ministry was likely to propose spending cuts to close the gap, the source added.<\/p>\n

Budget risks have clearly increased, said economist Dmitry Polevoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a negative scenario, the authorities will likely be forced to look for new sources of revenue, with non-energy commodity sectors, the broader non-resource economy and even household incomes among the first in line,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the growing pressures, budget difficulties are unlikely to prompt President Vladimir Putin to end the fighting any time soon, economist Vladislav Inozemtsev said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin will encourage the Central Bank to print money; he will continue to raise taxes, sell state property and nationalize business corporations,\u201d Inozemtsev told<\/a> The Guardian. \u201cThis will allow him to get enough money to wage the war for 2026, and, most probably, for 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key uncertainty for the budget is whether Russia will adapt to new sanctions that have driven up discounts on its oil, said<\/a> investment banker Yevgeny Kogan.<\/p>\n

If not, authorities will face \u201cpainful decisions\u201d in the second half of the year, including spending cuts, tax hikes and increased borrowing, he said.<\/p>\n

Read this story in Russian at The Moscow Times’ Russian service.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s federal budget posted a deficit of 1.718 trillion rubles ($22.3 billion) in January, nearly half of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,6225,11053,19136],"class_list":{"0":"post-464627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-finance-ministry","13":"tag-gas","14":"tag-oil"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}