Posted on 01/14/2025 5:23:38 PM PST by Apparatchik
Russia is facing a critical challenge to its war effort in 2025: The nation is quickly running out of cash, with financial reserves potentially running out before the end of the year, according to estimates from one European economist.
Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist and a former fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks liquid reserves in Russia's National Wealth Fund could potentially be depleted by the fall of this year.
That spells trouble for the nation's military efforts in 2025, he said, given how heavily Russia has relied on its wealth fund over the last several years.
Liquid reserves in the wealth fund have been drawn down from $117 billion in 2021 to $31 billion as of the end of November, Åslund said.
Yet, according to its 2025 budget, Russia is on track to spend a record $130.5 billion on defense this year.
"The most critical shortage, however, is budget financing, as Russia's last liquid reserves are likely to run out in the fall of 2025," Åslund wrote in an op-ed for Project Syndicate on Tuesday. "Budget cuts will then become necessary. In the meantime, the war economy might also require price controls and rationing — the old Soviet sins. As the risk of a financial crash rises, Russia's imperiled economy is about to pose serious constraints on Putin's war."
The rapid decline in Russia's wealth fund has been partly driven by Western sanctions, which have prevented Russia from borrowing from other countries. The nation's total foreign debt has collapsed over the last decade, with foreign borrowing down from $729 billion in 2023 to around $293 billion in September 2024, Åslund noted.
Russia's limited ability to finance the war is also spells bad news for the health of its economy, which is plagued by a myriad of other issues.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Can Biden send them a few billion?
not this again. How man times have the been about broke now?
Their GDP to Debt ration is 14.9%. ours is 123%. And they are on the verge of financial collapse....
Got it. LOL
It’s all over for Russia and China is on the skids too.
The propaganda war never ends.
Can’t they just print rubbles? That is all the “Federal reserve” does. Not “federal” and not “reserve.” Russians do not know about fiat money?
Lots of panicked Zeeper posts as we count down to The Trump part II
ZEEPER FOLLIES PINGLIST!(((PING!)))
I do not give Business Insider a lot of credibility.
Oh man... I don’t wanna live in a world where I cannot trust Business Insider and European members of the Atlantic Council! /s
So it sounds like Russia will have to nuke Ukraine later this year, if the Neocons keep their war going.
Russia is going broke!
Ukraine is going broke!
Russia is running out of troops!
Ukraine is running out of troops!
One more push, and the Russian lines will collapse!
One more push, and the Ukrainian lines will collapse!
What a sad mess. I dunno. Maybe they will surrender to each other simultaneously.
We're like x7 in debt of our annual income. And Biden can't give away money fast enough as he's being pushed out the door.
That won't be fun.
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