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Money for the War: Russia’s Financial Reserves are Dwindling
The lack of immediate effect of the Western economic sanctions imposed against Russia in 2022 caused the expected wave of skepticism in the Western media and expert community. At the same time, the financial capacity of Putin’s regime to continue the war is critical to developing a collective Western response to armed aggression against Ukraine. A proper assessment of these capabilities could provide invaluable support to Western experts and policymakers in developing military, diplomatic, economic, and financial deterrence of the Russian Federation. In this sense, an important indicator is the structure of Russia’s financial reserves of the National Wealth Fund and their change over the past 12 months. Calculations and graphs in this article were made by the author on the basis of official data.
A year after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the apparent significant depletion of Russian financial reserves has become a new reality. The Russian National Wealth Fund (NWF) decreased by almost 1 trillion rubles in December 2022, according to the press office of the Russian Ministry of Finance.
On January 1, the amount of the NWF was 10.43 trillion rubles, or 7.8% of the projected 2022 GDP. In dollar terms, the volume was $148.35 billion. December 1, the volume of the National Wealth Fund, as reported by the Ministry of…