Moscow Times: Russia's 2026 UPDATED budget plan, filling in some numbers that were missing from Western reporting: 👉Expenses: 48.6tr rub 👉Revenues: 41.2tr rub 👉Deficit: 7.3tr rub Differences of +/-0.1tr from rounding. This budget looks vaguely realistic, but covering the funding isn't explained.
ru.themoscowtimes.com
Russia says oil&gas revenues will be 7.6tr rub. They INCREASED budgeted "other" revenues to 33.6tr rub. I wanted about this previously, see e.g. post. My current midrange forecast, based on past-year patterns + Jan-Aug results was for 34.0tr rub other revenue. So Russia's number is realistic.
Anyway. The bad news isn't reported by Reuters. So far this year Russia has much stronger than expected revenue growth in VAT, and my numbers also suggest strong growth in social contribution taxes. I think non oil&gas revenues could grow enough to offset any losses in oil&gas.
For oil & gas, they've lowered the budget plan from 8.9tr rub to 7.6tr rub. This is a bigger reduction than I thought was likely, given recent oil prices. I guesstimated 7.9-8.9tr rub, but didn't know how to account for Ukraine's drone campaign in the budget. There's no historical evidence. Expenses: I've pointed out that Russia spends more than they say they will, then they officially have a plan that's "trust me bro I'll cut my spending soon". War is like crack to Russia, they just can't give it up even as it drains them financially while promising they're not addicted.
Every time they publish something like this, they promise either spending cuts or a sudden slowdown. Example in linked post. They say 2026 expenses will be 46.1tr rub. That means 14.4tr rub in Sep-Dec. Same period last year was 15.3tr rub. They promise big cuts, & soon.
The new budget says that September-December expenses will increase by ~10.6% versus the same period 2025. So far expenses are up +14.6%. So this represents a slowdown, but not the extreme & sudden cuts they were promising up until this week. I think it's possible. For expenses: my calculation using simple historical patterns was a range of 49-56tr rub. Their new budget says 48.6tr rub. Finally close to realistic. Why do I have such a big range? Well historically Russia has a certain spending pattern: some percentage in Jan-Aug, another in Sep-Dec. If Russia follows the historical spending pattern from 2016-2024, their expenses would come in at 52tr rub or more. In 2025 they were in the same position as today and needed to tighten hard in Sep-Dec. They cut official expenses in late 2025 (partly through accounting tricks). This meant that officially, late 2025 had a big slowdown in late-year expenditures. If Russia in 2026 can copy the big expense slowdown they managed in 2025, then their expenses would be around 49tr rub. The new budget plan says 48.6tr rub expenses, so it's actually believable. However, I've looked into the financial resources officially available to the pension/social funds and to the regions and from what I can find, Russia cannot repeat the exact same accounting trick that shifted over 1tr rub off the federal budget. So to hit this year's budget expenses goal: either they have a new accounting trick to cut expenses, or they are genuinely going to make real changes to restrict expenses over September-December. We're talking trillions of rubles of cuts or shifted expenses compared with historical trends. Note: all these things are moving targets. E.g. if oil revenues are higher than expected, then other numbers could change too. The deficit would shrink and/or they'd allow themselves to spend more. Their current plan looks realistic, but involves a promise to heavily restrict late-year spending.