The official budget deficit surged last year, as did off-balance sheet military spending via the banking system and unpaid bills. That might be tough to sustain, especially with lower oil revenues.
The combination of lower oil prices and the oil price cap has done relatively little to dent Russia’s overall export earnings from selling goods to the rest of the world, which were $420 billion in 2019, $425 billion in 2023, $434 billion in 2024, and about $413 billion in 2025.
This is a huge surprise to me if true, I tried to check the numbers, and I couldn’t find anything to show them wrong, on the contrary the numbers I can find seem to confirm this?
This is very strange since we hear all sorts of Russian exports are collapsing. First and foremost oil, which is now worth half what it was 4 years ago, natural gas to EU is at most a fourth, and was considered a major source of income for Russia, but also I’ve heard coal to China has declined steeply, and of course their weapons export is almost halted as they need the weapons themselves.
Those are all major export sectors, so how can it be possible for Russia to maintain stable export numbers?
I don’t think so… deflated would mean it takes fewer roubles to buy an item, not more. A 100 trillion economy would become a 120 trillion economy on paper with no other changes.
You didn’t write that it was against the Ruble previously. The US dollar has definitely deflated when seen against other international currencies. So what you probably mean is that the Ruble has deflated more than the USD. But that’s irrelevant, since the export numbers are given in USD.
Yeah. Looks like the USD and rouble have been trading fairly evenly the last few years, within about 20%. So they’ve probably been inflating roughly at the same pace, I guess…
Regardless it seems like the basic thesis, that Russia doesn’t seem likely to have any more room for increasing spending, is accurate.
Although I guess a deflated dollar would look like an inflated rouble, and vice versa. On the other hand they can both inflate/deflate relative to yuan or euro.
Very interesting article! 👍
This is a huge surprise to me if true, I tried to check the numbers, and I couldn’t find anything to show them wrong, on the contrary the numbers I can find seem to confirm this?
This is very strange since we hear all sorts of Russian exports are collapsing. First and foremost oil, which is now worth half what it was 4 years ago, natural gas to EU is at most a fourth, and was considered a major source of income for Russia, but also I’ve heard coal to China has declined steeply, and of course their weapons export is almost halted as they need the weapons themselves.
Those are all major export sectors, so how can it be possible for Russia to maintain stable export numbers?
I’ve seen several articles pointing to $374B in exports for 2024 (including wiki), with no formal numbers for 2025 yet. Those numbers seem off.
Here is a good one that shows energy exports.
This is another that discusses overall trade. Noteworthy is the significant change in economic complexity.
In the end though, I have many more questions. This has peaked my curiosity and I’ll be doing some deeper research tonight.
https://tass.com/economy/2084701
That’s a trade surplus of $139 bln.
These are of course official numbers, so they may be doctored.
The US dollar has inflated like 25% in that period, maybe that is related.
I think you mean deflated, as it has lost value.
I don’t think so… deflated would mean it takes fewer roubles to buy an item, not more. A 100 trillion economy would become a 120 trillion economy on paper with no other changes.
You didn’t write that it was against the Ruble previously. The US dollar has definitely deflated when seen against other international currencies. So what you probably mean is that the Ruble has deflated more than the USD. But that’s irrelevant, since the export numbers are given in USD.
Yeah. Looks like the USD and rouble have been trading fairly evenly the last few years, within about 20%. So they’ve probably been inflating roughly at the same pace, I guess…
Regardless it seems like the basic thesis, that Russia doesn’t seem likely to have any more room for increasing spending, is accurate.
Absolutely, the Russian economy is doing very poorly disregarding exports may hold better than we thought.
Although I guess a deflated dollar would look like an inflated rouble, and vice versa. On the other hand they can both inflate/deflate relative to yuan or euro.