According to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, it amounted to 8.291 trillion rubles. ($108.3 billion).
Compared to last year, the “hole” of the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation, which includes the federal treasury, regional budgets, as well as extra-budgetary funds (Pension Fund and Medical Insurance Fund), increased 2.6 times, or by 5.696 trillion rubles. ($74.4 billion).
Revenues of budgets of all levels grew over the year by 6.5%, twice as slow as expenses, which jumped by 13%, the media writes. Two-thirds of the final deficit was provided by the federal treasury: it ended the year with a “hole” of 5.625 trillion rubles. ($73.5 billion), which was five times higher than the original plan. The regional budget deficit set a record for two decades of state statistics – 1.5 trillion rubles. ($19.6 billion).
“The Russian economy has entered the death zone,” wrote Alexandra Prokopenko, a research fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, in a column for The Economist published on February 16. This is what climbers call altitudes above 8000 m, where the human body eats itself faster than it can recover, the media explained.
