{"id":93999,"date":"2025-10-21T04:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T04:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/93999\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T04:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T04:46:10","slug":"russian-regions-face-deepening-budget-crisis-as-reserves-run-dry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/93999\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Regions Face Deepening Budget Crisis as Reserves Run Dry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s regions are facing a looming fiscal crisis as falling tax revenues and mounting expenses have forced local governments to exhaust nearly all their financial reserves, according to data reviewed by<\/a> the Expert RA ratings agency.<\/p>\n

At least six regions had just two to three day\u2019s worth of spending left in their bank accounts as of Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

The Arkhangelsk region, home to about 1 million people, had 50 million rubles ($620,000) in reserve, or just 0.03% of its 156-billion-ruble ($1.93 billion) annual budget.<\/p>\n

Kalmykia\u2019s remaining 40 million rubles ($496,000) amounted to 0.1% of its yearly spending plan.<\/p>\n

In the Volgograd region, reserves fell to 100 million rubles ($1.24 million), or 0.04% of its annual budget of 196 billion rubles ($2.43 billion).<\/p>\n

The Belgorod region had just 200 million rubles ($2.48 million) left, or 0.1% of its 184-billion-ruble ($2.28 billion) budget.<\/p>\n

The Ulyanovsk and Irkutsk regions had 500 million ($6.2 million) and 900 million rubles ($11.16 million) remaining, respectively \u2014 enough to cover only one to two days of expenses.<\/p>\n

Murmansk\u2019s reserves also fell below 1 billion rubles ($12.4 million), or 0.7% of its annual budget, enough for about two days of spending.<\/p>\n

Larger regions such as Novosibirsk, Tula and Yaroslavl could cover roughly five days of spending, with 5.2 billion ($64.48 million), 2.3 billion ($28.52 million) and 2.1 billion rubles ($26.04 million) left on their accounts.<\/p>\n

Regional budgets collectively ran<\/a> a deficit of 397.8 billion rubles ($4.93 billion) in the first half of 2025, a figure that ballooned<\/a> to 724.8 billion ($8.99 billion) by the end of September.<\/p>\n

One in three regions saw nominal revenue declines, while inflation-adjusted income fell in 53 of Russia\u2019s 89 federal subjects (including annexed Crimea and the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions).<\/p>\n

A total of 67 regions ended the first half of the year in the red.<\/p>\n

The worst deficits were recorded in the Kemerovo (34% of revenues), Arkhangelsk (31%), Komi (30%), Murmansk (28%), Vologda (25%) and Irkutsk (24.6%) regions, according to<\/a> economist Natalia Zubarevich.<\/p>\n

The Irkutsk region has already begun<\/a> cutting spending, announcing a 4.9-billion-ruble ($60.76 million) reduction in education and healthcare budgets in September.<\/p>\n

Teachers have faced pay cuts<\/a> in 12 regions, while local authorities in Yaroslavl, Ulyanovsk and Dagestan are considering<\/a> tax hikes on small businesses to offset deficits.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in the Orenburg, Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk regions have introduced bills to raise vehicle taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation with regional budgets is serious and will only worsen by year\u2019s end,\u201d Zubarevich said<\/a>, warning that December\u2019s surge in payments for government contracts will deepen the shortfall.<\/p>\n

The Finance Ministry estimates that regional spending will exceed revenues by 370 billion rubles ($4.59 billion) in December and by another 300 billion ($3.72 billion) next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s regions are facing a looming fiscal crisis as falling tax revenues and mounting expenses have forced local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,4802],"class_list":{"0":"post-93999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-regions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}