Putin Is Rapidly "burning Through" Money
- 11.03.2026, 9:30
In two months, the RF budget deficit has almost reached the annual plan.
By the end of the 4th year of the war, the Russian economy faced a serious budget imbalance. At the end of January and February 2026, the federal budget deficit reached 3.449 trillion rubles. This is almost the amount that the Russian authorities had budgeted for the entire year.
The attention to this was drawn by system analyst, blogger Evgeny Istrebin, who analyzed official financial statistics.
The Russian government budgeted an annual deficit of 3.786 trillion rubles. Today, after the first 2 months, this limit has already been exhausted by 91%. In February, the Russian budget revenues amounted to 2.405 trillion rubles, which is 10% less than in the same period last year.
The most noticeable decline was recorded in the oil and gas sector. Receipts from oil and gas exports amounted to Br432.3 billion in February, which is 44% less than a year earlier. At the same time, non-oil and gas revenues amounted to 1.973 trillion rubles, an increase of about 4%.
At the same time, federal budget expenditures continued to grow in February. They reached 4.136 trillion rubles, up 14% compared to February last year. As a result, the monthly deficit amounted to 1.731 trillion rubles.
For comparison: in February 2025, it was at the level of about 0.95 trillion rubles. If we consider the total figures for January and February 2026, the picture looks even more alarming for Russians. Budget revenues for this period amounted to 4.767 trillion rubles, which is 10.8% lower than last year's values. Oil and gas revenues fell particularly sharply - to 826 billion rubles, losing almost 47% compared to the same period last year.
Non-oil and gas revenues reached 3.942 trillion rubles, increasing by about 4%. At the same time as revenues fell, government expenditures continued to grow. In the first two months of 2026, they reached 8.216 trillion rubles, which is 5.8% more than a year ago.
The budget deficit for this period amounted to 3.449 trillion rubles against 2.416 trillion rubles a year earlier.
Thereby, against the background of decreasing revenues and increasing expenditures, the deficit of the Russian treasury in February almost doubled compared to last year's figure.
Such a rapid increase in the budget gap creates additional pressure on the country's financial system.
Russia's current fiscal problems are directly linked to the full-scale war against Ukraine, which has been going on for more than four years.
Since the invasion began in February 2022, the Kremlin has significantly increased military expenditures, spending trillions of rubles on arms production, army maintenance and support for the defense industry.
It is the growth in military spending that has become one of the key drivers of budgetary pressure. Economists estimate that a significant portion of state funds is now spent on financing combat operations, increasing the deficit and reducing opportunities for the development of the aggressor's civilian economy.