The majority of Russians view their country and China as “great,” but would not say the same of the U.S. or its allies, according to Levada Center polling. The share of Russians who view their own country as great has almost doubled over the past two decades, from 43% in 2002 to 80% in 2023. The same period has seen the share of Levada respondents who view China as great triple from 19% in 2002 to 63% in 2023. By comparison, the share of Russians who view the U.S. as great halved from 62% in 2002 to 30% in 2023. The same period saw the share of Russians who view Japan, the U.K., Germany and France as great shrink at an even faster rate, ending at 9%, 9%, 8% and 3%, respectively, in 2023. Interestingly, while the share of Russians who admire Western greatness has shrunk dramatically over the past two decades, shorter-term measurements reveal certain improvements in Russians’ views toward some of these countries. For instance, the share of Russians who say they have a good attitude toward the U.S. was 22% in August 2023, which is higher than at any other point since February 2022.
Latest news on the war: these past two days we have advanced considerably to a full-blown Russia-NATO war
This past week most Western media discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war has focused on developments in New York, where Zelensky and Biden gave their propaganda speeches about Russian imperialism threatening the world order, and then in Washington, where Zelensky met with Congressional leaders and with the President in his pursuit of further deliveries of arms. The focus was on air defense systems, on F-16 fighter jets and on the ATACMS ground to ground missiles.
This past week Western media broke ranks on the prospects for a Ukrainian victory. It appeared that there is growing consensus that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had failed and there was more talk of Ukraine-fatigue in American political circles. Speculation now turned both in major media and in dissident media on how the United States will respond to a looming defeat in Ukraine. Many decided that Washington would just move on after ‘throwing Ukraine under the bus’ and raise the war cries against China so as to avoid getting bogged down in recriminations over ‘who lost Ukraine.’
However, that was two days ago. Today Washington’s Plan B is becoming clearer. And what I see does not look good for world peace and for our chances of surviving this conflict.
Plan B took the form of the Storm Shadow strike a couple of days ago directly on the General Staff building of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. You have not seen or heard much about this in Western media and the Russians were dead silent until today. And even today what little information we have comes from the civilian administration in Sevastopol, not from the Russian Ministry of Defense, a fact which by itself raises the intrigue.
The Russian news tickers, by which I mean Dzen (formerly Yandex news) and mail.ru, tell us that one staff member of the general staff is unaccounted for. We are told by the Governor of Sevastopol that another strike may be expected and people were warned not to visit the downtown area. As for the building itself, the attack touched off a fire which took several hours to bring under control. There were reports that debris was scattered up to several hundred meters away. There was talk of back-up equipment being prepared to carry on the functions that were performed in the staff building. Finally, the attacking missile has been identified as a British-made Storm Shadow air-to-ground cruise missile. There may have been a cluster of these missiles incoming, because Russian air defense is said to have shot down five.
Judging by past experience when the Ukrainians have committed some sensational act, such as their bombing of the Crimean bridge or the destruction of the Kakhovka dam or their incursion across the border to the Belgorod region of Russia, there was some menacing response from the Russian Defense Ministry. Now there is silence. Why? Russian state television news yesterday and today has carried on as if there is nothing more important than the price of diesel fuel and whether the new ban on export will dampen the price and improve availability across the country.
The next troublesome straw in the wind is the reversal of the Biden administration on the question of sending the ATACMS to Kiev. The optimal moment to announce such a decision would have been during Zelensky’s day on Capitol Hill and meetings in the Oval Office. Instead Jake Sullivan told reporters that no decision had been taken as yet by the President.
I believe there is a clear connection between the successful Storm Shadow attack on the general staff building in Sevastopol and the decision to ship ATACMS to Ukraine now. I also note that the decision to supply the American missiles will surely be followed in a few days by the German decision to ship its long-range TAURUS missiles. Both decisions have till now been held back on grounds that they would lead to a Russian escalation of the war. Now it would appear that, facing imminent defeat, the Biden administration is throwing caution to the wind and is ready to risk outbreak of a direct, not proxy Russia-NATO war.
As a further straw in the wind, I point to another deeply troublesome bit of information that you will not find in The New York Times. The Russian news ticker today carries a report from a Russian commander in the field in Ukraine that his unit just destroyed a Leopard tank and found that the entire crew was Germans. Two of them were killed and one injured tank officer was taken prisoner. Those manning a Leopard surely were not soldiers of fortune but genuine Bundeswehr boys. Put in other words, NATO is now directly on the battlefield and not as advisers or instructors. We are headed into very dangerous territory.
Poscript: One reader has sent in a valuable further bit of information that is not in mainstream reporting:
This, coming from Turkish sources, says that the Russians retaliated to the Sevastopol destruction by staging their own cruise missile attack on the Kremenchug Airport, the launch site used by the Ukrainians. “Both SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, which were stationed at the airbase, along with the SU24M/MR bombers responsible for today’s attack, have been detroyed. A substantial number of firefighters and ambulances have been dispatched to the airfield. There are significant casualties among pilots, ground personnel and even NATO personnel, ncluding Poles, who were involved in coordinating the operatoins and maintaining the missiles.”
This all suggests an additional reason for Biden to consent to shipment of the ATACMS missiles to Ukraine now: unlike the Storm Shadow, they are launched from the ground on mobile launchers similar to HIMARS. Therefore the loss of airfields and bombers and pilots does not constrain their use and holds the promise of more destuction of Russian assets in Crimea. I would also wager that US forces will be sent not just to maintain but to target and launch the ATACMS.
NOTE: I apologize for the flurry of posts sent last night. Something went haywire with my scheduling settings. The problem appears to be fixed now. – Natylie
A report published Wednesday [9/13/23] by a U.S. nonprofit group recommends cooperation between the United States and Russia aimed at reducing the threat of a nuclear war sparked by cyberattacks on nuclear weapon systems.
“In the modern nuclear age, there is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities and nuclear weapons systems,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) asserted in the report, entitled Reducing Cyber Risks to Nuclear Weapons: Proposals From a U.S.-Russia Expert Dialogue.
The publication “highlights the critical need for a global diplomatic approach to address growing cyber risks, including, where possible, through cooperation between the United States and Russia.”
“Despite significant current geopolitical tensions, the United States and Russia have a mutual interest in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons and an obligation to work together to do so based on the understanding that a cyberattack on a nuclear weapons system could trigger catastrophic and unintended conflict and escalation,” the group said in an implied reference to strained relations amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
NTI drew from talks between U.S. and Russian nonproliferation experts that took place in 2020 and 2021 prior to last year’s invasion of Ukraine.
“While acknowledging the challenges posed by an already charged political environment, the dialogue emphasized the importance of maintaining cooperation between the United States and Russia on key nuclear security issues, the value of unilateral risk reduction actions, and the benefit of developing ideas for cooperative steps to be advanced when the political situation improves,” the organization noted.
The talks yielded six recommendations for the U.S. and Russia to reduce cyber risks:
Refrain from cyber interference in nuclear weapons and related systems, including nuclear command, control, communications, delivery, and warning systems;
Evaluate options to minimize entanglement and/or integration of conventional and nuclear assets;
Continue to improve the cybersecurity of their respective nuclear systems, including through unilateral “fail-safe” reviews;
Increase transparency and expand communications during periods of increased tension;
Adopt procedures to ensure that any cyber, information, or other operation involving information and communications technologies emanating from the United States or Russia with the potential to disrupt another nation’s nuclear deterrence mission be approved at the same level as required for nuclear use; and
Eliminate policies that threaten a nuclear weapons response to cyberattack.
“Today, the United States and Russia still possess roughly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons and are also among the most proficient and active developers and users of information and communications technology (ICT),” the report notes. “Nuclear weapons policies, however, have not kept up with these technological advancements.”
“Meanwhile,” the publication continues, “the ubiquity of advanced digital ICT tools, as well as their fulsome functional benefits, have led both countries’ nuclear weapons enterprises to incorporate digital technologies into their nuclear weapons, warning, command, control, and communications systems.”
“With that modernization come vulnerabilities and openness to cyberattacks that could prompt dangerous miscalculations or accidents, leading to nuclear use,” NTI stated, adding that “in the mid- to long-term, cybersecurity can be improved in the context of ongoing nuclear weapons systems modernization.”
“Mutual commitments can be codified through various political or legal formats,” the report states. “Nuclear force modernization in each country presents an opportunity to clarify, isolate, and distinguish which systems are involved in nuclear deterrence missions from civilian infrastructure, critical national assets, and conventional warfighting systems.”
“Modernization also provides opportunities to improve system resiliency and upgrade cybersecurity measures and practices,” the publication adds. “Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives.”
The new report came a day after the U.S. Department of Defense published an unclassified summary of its 2023 Cyber Strategy, the first update in five years, in which the Pentagon stated it would “use cyberspace operations for the purpose of campaigning, undertaking actions to limit, frustrate, or disrupt adversaries’ activities below the level of armed conflict and to achieve favorable security conditions.”
The Pentagon added that it would “remain closely attuned to adversary perceptions and will manage the risk of unintended escalation.”
Russia’s war and U.S. support for Ukrainian efforts to oust invaders have heightened international calls for disarmament, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently warning that nuclear modernization and rising global mistrust is “a recipe for annihilation.”
Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.
“The future of the world will be decided in Ukraine” – this was the motto under which the two-day conference of the “Yalta European Strategy” (YES) forum took place in Kiev last week. The event has been organized by the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk’s foundation since 2006. RT DE took the trouble to watch almost all of the video recordings of more than a dozen panels of the conference, which the organizer gradually published on YouTube a few days after it ended .
Why is that important? The YES has established itself as an annual meeting point for the loud and influential Ukraine lobby among the Western elites, a kind of mixture between a “Ukrainian Davos” and the “Munich SiKo on a small scale”. Ideas are developed, information is exchanged and plans for the future are made. It is a look into the workshop of Western thought about Ukraine, Russia, the West and the rest of the world. In a practical sense, it is the opportunity to understand what is being discussed and planned in governments, parliaments, editorial offices of well-known media, think tanks and military staffs about the current status of the Ukraine conflict.
Pinchuk is a multi-billionaire, media mogul and son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma. He also sees himself as a link between the Western establishment and Ukrainian business elites. As organizer of YES, he said in his welcoming speech:
“Ukraine is at the center of the universe. Ukraine has been at the center of European history for hundreds of years. Today it is at the center of world history. This war is the most important and significant war in world history.”
These words were received with enthusiasm by the audience. Many high-ranking and well-known participants who subsequently appeared in dozens of panels at the conference saw the situation similarly. Something eschatological was in the air, the philosophy of the morally based final battle between good and evil, rise and fall, form and chaos, reason and irrationality, etc.
So it started with images of the world apocalypse that President Vladimir Zelensky painted on the wall in his welcoming speech if Ukraine, as a champion of “democracy and humanism,” does not win this fateful battle:
“The speech is about the future of morality. If Russia wins, the world will turn into a world of slaves who will kill people like Putin just because they like it.”
He also compared Russia’s victory to the coming climate catastrophe. Historians and journalists gave this narrative a further “civilizational” component. According to the US historian Timothy Snyder, ancient Greek democracy and thus the civilization of the cities were only able to develop thanks to access to the fertile southern Ukrainian soil in the Black Sea region.
Later wars were mainly about control of these areas. The Polish colonization of the 16th and 17th centuries, Adolf Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin’s project of modernization are examples of this. Today Ukraine is the main breadwinner of the world population. If she loses, there will be global hunger.
Since Russia went to war without ideas or a vision of the future, this war was also the war against hopelessness. “It makes Russians angry that Ukrainians have hope,” he claimed. By hope he meant the desired accession to the EU and NATO. Since Russia does not rely on the power of ideas, but on the right of the strongest – i.e. brute force – a Russian victory means the triumph of the forces of chaos and darkness.
His Ukrainian colleague Jaroslav Grizak also shared this idea. A defeat of Ukraine would mean nothing less than the end of human civilization. According to him, the previous world wars were about “improving the world” (although he didn’t say exactly what). The Ukraine war is about the sheer survival of humanity.
Russia is a central problem. It is not capable of becoming a “normal European country”. Since reforms that always fail are always followed by a strengthening of tyranny, there is the so-called “Russian pendulum”, which inevitably culminates in aggression against its neighboring countries. This pendulum must be stopped, demanded Grizak.
The majority of other Ukrainian participants in the forum from politics and the media supported the idea that Russia cannot be improved, regardless of whether Vladimir Putin is in power in the Kremlin or a “better person” like Alexei Navalny. “We in Ukraine often say that only a dead Russian is a good Russian,” explained a Ukrainian politician. At one of the panels, four Ukrainian military officers who had come straight from the front sat on the podium. The death (of the heroic Ukrainians and the “evil Russians”) was a central theme.
Among them was lawyer and fighter Masi Nayyem, who lost his right eye in the war. The uncovered, gaping scar at this point allowed him to have a say because it gave him the credibility of a sufferer. Nayyem described what his fondest dream is:
“I cannot say that I am waging this war in the name of new values. I want to take revenge. I want to take revenge in the most cruel way possible in view of international conventions. The more Russians die, the better it is for me as a participant in hostilities. I have the right to kill Russians, and that is my greatest wish.”
“What the heroes fight for and give their lives for” – that was the name of the corresponding panel. The monologues of the hand-picked war participants were undoubtedly the emotional highlight of the entire two-day conference. The Western spectators showed respect and admiration for the hard-tested fighters – after all, they sacrificed themselves for their interests, which they openly admitted on occasion.
But there was also a bit of culture and entertainment. A Ukrainian singer and a writer should explain to the audience what makes the Ukrainian idea “so strong.” The panel also had a meaningful name. However, the reason for this was quite easy to identify.
“Ukrainians are smarter and better than Russians,” said a Ukrainian rock singer based in New York in unaccented English. The writer and avowed nationalist Sergei Shadan, who has been showered with Western prizes and awards, compared Ukraine to a young and cool punk band and Russia to an aging cabaret singer who is completely unaware that her time is over. At the end, the two sang passionate songs about “Peremoga”, the Ukrainian victory.
The respectable audience was amused. These Ukrainians are a wonderful people! Not only does it go to war against the Russians heroically and without fear of death, but it also sings. But will the oft-touted Ukrainian victory come at some point? Are there problems on the way to the glorious future of a transparent, successful, digitalized, climate-friendly country, a mandatory NATO and EU member that attracts investments, feeds the world and develops the most advanced technologies – as Prime Minister Denis Shmygal enthused in his speech ?
Yes, these problems exist, and at least one panel has been devoted to each of them. For example, the organizers correctly recognized that the majority of the world’s population is not on the side of Ukraine. Or that voters in the West could vote out Ukraine’s supporters in their governments. And finally, that the Russians simply cannot allow a military victory for Ukraine.
However, these difficulties still appear to be surmountable. The Third World can still be convinced by adapting the narrative. After all, ordinary people are on the side of Ukraine, as Zelensky and a British participant suggested. For Africa, for example, it would make sense to declare that the Russian war against Ukraine was the last “Western”, imperialist-colonial war. Russia is an eternal imperialist, whereas the West has overcome its colonial past.
Problems with “Ukraine fatigue” in the West could be solved by increasing “reporting” on “cruel” Russian war crimes. “Then people know who is good and who is bad, and of course they feel like supporting the good side,” said a US lawmaker. His French colleague added that people in his country are well aware that supporting Ukraine is simply “in our own economic interest.”
And in addition to the heroism and ingenuity of the Ukrainian soldiers, only an intensification of arms deliveries can help against the slow advance of the Ukrainian army. “Weapons, weapons, weapons,” echoed so often through the hall on these days ( RT DE reported ).
Conclusion
YES 2023 was a first-class propaganda event, with the usual fantasies on this topic. It showed: The West is preparing for a long-term war against the “enemy of humanity” Russia. A Ukrainian (and therefore our own) defeat or a fragile peace are out of the question.
And this war is still being fought – as originally planned – by its loyal mercenary state Ukraine. However, its condition is worrying. It was therefore carefully examined whether the level of hatred against the enemy and the ambition of the remaining fighters were still high. The result: satisfactory.
Anger, sadness and a desire for revenge should now more than ever guide the soldiers’ final battle. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation has caught the spirit of the times and posted the one-eyed fighter Nayyem’s vows of revenge as the quintessence of the event, which lasted several hours, on the Internet. The short video translated into English is spreading like wildfire, and the bloody slaughter at the hands of strangers can continue.
The Russian government has approved its first full wartime budget that will significantly increase military spending in 2024 as well as boost social spending to shelter the population from the effects of war and sanctions.
The draft budget for 2024 will increase military spending 1.7-fold and for the first time in the history of modern Russia will exceed social spending. The latter, however, will also increase, as will the costs of security forces and intelligence services, The Bell reported onSeptember 22.
To finance these huge expenses, the government will have to find somewhere an additional RUB7 trillion rubles in revenue compared to 2023. Firstly, this makes it inevitable that inflation will continue to accelerate and the Central Bank will maintain a high rate. And secondly, it almost inevitably means new taxes – and the authorities are already moving in this direction. So far the Ministry of Finance (MinFin) has done everything it can to avoid raising taxes other than hitting big business with a windfall tax on large enterprises that should bring in an extra RUB300bn ($4bn) of revenues.
The draft federal budget for 2024–2026 must be submitted to the Duma before October 1. The government press service disclosed only the general parameters of the budget, without a breakdown of expenses, but Bloomberg was leaked figures for the most important items.
Military expenditures (item “National Defence”) in 2024 will amount to RUB10.8 trillion rubles — 1.7 times more than Russia will actually spend on defence in 2023 (RUB6.4 trillion, according to Bloomberg), and 2.3 times more than in the first war year of 2022 (RUB4.7 trillion).
RUB10.8 trillion rubles is approximately 6% of GDP, twice as much as the budget spent on defence items in the pre-war years. This ratio is comparable to US military spending in the 1980s, at the last peak of the Cold War (after 1988, the US never spent more than 6% of GDP on defence). Russia is still far from the USSR, which spent 12–14% of GDP on defence.
Almost nominal, but still, growth is planned for the “National Security” section, which takes into account spending on law enforcement agencies and intelligence services – from RUB3.2 to RUB3.5 trillion rubles.
Of the three remaining major sections of the budget, expenses for the National Economy – where government investments and subsidies to business are taken into account — will be reduced from RUB4.1 to RUB3.9 trillion rubles.
The remaining healthcare and education will remain unchanged: RUB1.6 and RUB1.5 trillion rubles, respectively.
The government’s willingness to dramatically increase military spending, without sacrificing anything else, is based on over-optimistic forecasts of budget revenues and expenditures.
The government expects that in 2024 the budget will receive RUB35 trillion in revenue, compared to RUB26.1 trillion planned for this year (an increase of RUB8.9 trillion rubles, or 34% compared to 2023). Of this, RUB11.5 trillion rubles should come from oil and gas revenues (RUB8 trillion is planned for 2023).
“The government’s expectation for revenues looks optimistic and unrealistic,” says Alexandra Prokopenko, a Russian finance expert. “The key take aways from Russia’s wartime budget: Putin prepares for the long war; guns above the butter (military spending exceeds social for the first time ever; and all the cows that can still give milk in Russia’s economy will be milked to death.”
Budget expenditures are planned at RUB36.6 trillion (an increase of RUB7.6 trillion, or 26.2% by 2023). This means that the budget deficit in 2024, according to the government’s plan, should be significantly reduced – from 2% of GDP planned for 2023 (RUB2.9 trillion rubles) to 0.8% of GDP (RUB1.6 trillion rubles).
These figures should be supported by the optimistic forecasts of the Ministry of Economy for 2024 included in the budget – GDP growth by 2.3% (and not less than 2% in 2025-2026), the price of Urals oil is $85 per barrel. The average dollar exchange rate in 2024, according to the forecast, will be RBU90.1 to the dollar. The current forecast of the Central Bank is somewhat more modest – for 2024 it promises 0.5–1.5% GDP growth and Urals at $60.
The bottom line is that the government, in order to finance the cosmic increase in military spending, while not forgetting about social ones, will have to find RUB9 trillion rubles of additional income somewhere in 2024 (an increase of 34%).
On the one hand, the nominal growth of budget revenues will be facilitated by the weakening of the ruble that has already occurred and accelerating inflation (by the end of 2023 it should be 7.5%).
On the other hand, a new budget rule, announced on September 22 by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, should increase revenues. In fact, we are talking about a return to the old formula, forgotten after the start of the war: all oil and gas revenues received above the cut-off price set by the government go to the National Welfare Fund, and all income below this price goes to the budget. Only the cut-off price will now be $60 per barrel – $15 higher than it would have been under the old formula.
The chief economist for Russia at Bloomberg Economics, Alexander Isakov, estimated the effect of the new version of the fiscal rule at RUB1.5 trillion in additional budget revenues.
But all this will not bring RUB9 trillion, says The Bell. The government directly hinted at how they were supposed to receive them this same week, announcing the introduction of new duties for exporters. They will be in effect from October 1 until the end of 2024. Depending on the exchange rate, the duty will be 10% for fertilizer producers and 4–7% for all other industries. At an exchange rate of RUB80 per dollar and below, the duty will be reset to zero (but the forecast of the Ministry of Economy – the average annual rate of RUB90.1 – does not assume this).
In fact, we are talking about an indirect tax for export-oriented businesses. A businessman working in the fertilizer market shared his calculations with The Bell: for his industry, the introduction of new duties is equivalent to an increase in the effective income tax rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 40% (the nominal rate is 20%), and taking into account the previously introduced one-time tax on excess profits – 55%.
This proposal was not particularly discussed with business, two of The Bell’s interlocutors say. Moreover, he claims that the chief commissioner for combating inflation, the Central Bank, did not participate in the discussion. This seems strange to The Bell’s interlocutor – after all, after the proposal appeared, experts immediately saw pro-inflationary risks in it.
The government does not have many other options for replenishing the budget, other than increasing or introducing new taxes. The growth of domestic demand, on which the economy grew (and with it non-oil and gas budget revenues) in 2023, should soon slow down due to an increase in the Central Bank rate.
At the same time, the budget, which plans to increase spending by 26%, means that high rates are here to stay, otherwise inflation will get out of control. And high rates, in turn, make it more expensive for the Ministry of Finance to service existing government debt (the yield of 40% of currently outstanding OFZs is tied to the Central Bank rate) and worsen the conditions for new borrowings.
This year budget on course for 2% GDP deficit
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin expects execution of the federal budget by the end of this year with a planned deficit of 2% of GDP.
“Sustainable focus on positive changes permits expecting execution of the federal budget this year with a deficit at the level of the initial projection of 2% of GDP,” he said at a meeting devoted to drafting federal budget for a three-year period. According to Economic Development Ministry’s data, “amid this background it is safe to speak about maintaining and even improving of those trends next year,” PM added.
Speaking about expenditures, he said that after the advancing period at the beginning of the year they returned to their traditional level and amounted to around RUB2.24 trillion in August.
According to preliminary figures provided by the Finance Ministry, Russia’s federal budget deficit totalled RUB2.81 trillion ($28bn) in January-July. (chart)
Russia had a surplus federal budget in August in the amount of around RUB230bn ($2.3bn), Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at a meeting devoted to drafting federal budget for a three-year period.
The Russian economy is adjusting to current challenges, he noted. “In August, federal budget ran a surplus, which amounted to around RUB230bn. Consolidated balance of the regions added another RUB140bn,” he said, noting that the Russian economy “is adjusting to current challenges.” The budget ran a surplus largely due to a surge in non-oil and gas revenues, PM explained, adding that they exceeded RUB1.8 trillion ($18.5bn) in August, up 56% compared with last year.
Oil and gas revenues of the Russian federal budget totalled RUB4.836 trillion ($44.76bn) in January – August 2023, which is 38.2% lower than a year ago, the Finance Ministry said on its website. Accumulation of extra oil and gas revenues during periods of the comfortable price situation and use of National Wealth Fund resources to cover shortfalls in oil and gas revenues in line with fiscal rule parameters provide for the budgetary system resilience to fluctuations in receiving oil and gas revenues, the ministry added.
Non-oil and gas revenues of the Russian budget amounted to RUB12.155 trillion ($124bn) in January – August 2023, the Finance Ministry said on its website.
“Non-oil and gas revenues totalled RUB12,155bn and surged by 24.2% year on year. The dynamics of receiving the largest non-oil and gas revenues of the federal budget (turnover taxes and income tax) remains consistently positive, including against the level of 2021 (as the least exposed to statistical effects of the base),” the ministry informed.
Food exports are emerging as a significant revenue source for Russia’s budget, following energy exports, according to Ruslan Davydov, Director of the Federal Customs Service. During an interview at the Eastern Economic Forum, Davydov highlighted the substantial increase in Russia’s grain exports compared to 2022.
Davydov stated, “Our agricultural products exports are performing well. We have almost exceeded last year’s exporting figures, with grain being the primary export, along with oil seeds, oil, vegetable oil, and sunflower seeds.” He noted that China, the Middle East, Egypt, and Kazakhstan are the primary importers of Russian food products. While food exports have increased by approximately 70% in volume, their value has been influenced by price dynamics.
In addition to food exports, Davydov discussed the remarkable growth in Russia’s car cargo transportation, which has more than doubled year-on-year in the past months of 2023. He highlighted the growth in both sea and railway cargo traffic, with car cargo traffic experiencing a 2.5-fold increase compared to 2022.
Furthermore, Davydov mentioned that China accounts for a significant share of Russia’s car imports, representing 92% in the period from January to August.
