The economist predicted a budget deficit by the end of the year

Russia's budget deficit in 2025 is unlikely to exceed 5 trillion rubles, according to Anton Tabakh, chief economist at the Expert rating agency of the Republic of Armenia. As he said in an interview with Izvestia on August 28, there will be no sharp spike in budget spending this year in December.

Moreover, deflation in Russia will last until the end of September

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"The December peak of budget payments is getting lower every year, and the significant increase in expenses in January and February was due to contract prepayments. In 2025, December should be much less significant. We expect monthly surpluses by the end of the year and a deficit of 4.5-5 trillion rubles by the end of the year. The $8 trillion scenario is possible only with "black swans" (unexpected shock events. — Ed.) on a fairly large scale," he notes.

According to Tabakh, budget-related problems have arisen this year mainly due to income, not expenses. The latter are quite tightly controlled, with the exception of those related to the high rate.

"But incomes are suffering from a strong cooling of the economy and a strong ruble, even with an increase in the income tax rate, revenues are not growing, not to mention a sharp drop in oil and gas revenues," he added.

According to the results of the first seven months of this year, the deficit amounted to 4.88 trillion rubles, which exceeds the budget plan for the whole year by more than a trillion. From January to July, the federal budget received more than 20.3 trillion rubles, which is 2.8% higher than last year's revenue. The volume of expenses exceeded the same period in 2024 by more than 20%.

Some economists, based on the dynamics of previous years, predicted that this year, due to the usual increase in spending at the end of the year, the deficit would amount to about 8 trillion rubles, or 4% of GDP. So, last year (as in many other years), the budget deficit was almost zero until the last month, but in December there was an injection of public funds into the economy, as a result of which it amounted to 1.7% of GDP.

If this happens in 2025, the result will be one of the highest deficits in the last 15 years. The Ministry of Finance, in turn, says that this year many expenses were funded ahead of schedule in January. That is, the expenditure part is more evenly distributed over the current year, rather than being reset at its end.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Will Russia have a record budget deficit