WaPo reports:
“Russia ended 2022 with a deficit of 3.3 trillion rubles, or $47.3 billion, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced Tuesday — one of the worst financial years in the country’s history, as Russia’s economy bore the brunt of the high costs of its war in Ukraine and the pain of Western economic sanctions.
The $47.3 billion deficit contrasted sharply with a budget surplus of $6.7 billion in 2021. The only year Russia experienced a larger deficit was in 2020 during the covid pandemic, when it hit 4.1 trillion rubles, or $55 billion at the time.
According to additional Finance Ministry figures published by Russian business newspaper RBC, Russia’s annual budget expenditure also shot up by nearly 26 percent in 2022, apparently driven by military costs...
...According to RBC, military spending is expected to jump in 2023, by nearly 5 trillion rubles, or $71 billion...
...Russian spending on security and law enforcement is expected to soar by nearly the same amount...
...The Russian government had reportedly sought to tackle its ballooning budget deficit last year by dipping into savings in Russia’s National Welfare Fund, as well as by levying windfall taxes on Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian energy company.
The new figures were unveiled Tuesday amid reports that Moscow is planning a “revenue mobilization” and may press Russian state companies and commodity producers for more money to fund the war efforts, including a proposal to impose “one-time” charges on fertilizer and coal producers.”
I have repeatedly mentioned that it is significant that Russia is on track to largely expend the old Soviet stockpiles of war materiel this year - but it is also quite possible that they will largely expend the National Wealth Fund as well, their version of the Social Security Trust Fund (which actually exists in their case).
Warm up the ruble printing presses for a wild ride!
2023 will be far worse for the RuZZian economy and finances.
Ural oil was fetching $38 a barrel 1 week ago.
A second round of mobilization will take hundreds of thousands more RuZZians out of the workforce and then hundreds of thousands more RuZZians will head to foreign countries.
RuZZia’s economy and military is spiraling downward.