Looks like it's up to Europe to do that.

Republicans blocked aid packages to Ukraine starting in 2023. That saved Russia's war machine and caused massive needless Ukrainian death.

Republicans also stopped new sanctions on shadow tankers, helping Russia fund its war.

Trump appears to favour war.

5\ Overall I think a ~7tr rub deficit is now more likely than some earlier estimates of 9-10tr rub. Spending growth meaningfully slowed in Sept/Oct. A genuine shift in course, but is it gonna be enough?

Let's watch what happens. Even their planned deficit is painful for Russia.

4\ If Russia repeats Oct performance of -4% other revenue and -12% expenses in Nov/Dec, then their annual deficit would end up at about 7.1tr rub Vs 5.7tr plan.

1.4tr rub needed from somewhere. Wealth Fund? More expensive debt?

3\ They really did cut expenses. They need to increase those ~12% cuts to just over 18% year-over-year in Nov/Dec.

They also need +10% growth in other revenue. They might manage that part because of taxation changes described in the link below.

2\
👉 Expenses 3388bn Vs my range 3128-4410bn (-12% v 2024)
👉 Other revenue 2096bn Vs my range 2167-2449bn (-4% v 2024)

The non-oil&gas revenue drop was outside my range. Something going on in your economy Russia? You say GDP is up and tax rates are up and inflation is up but you're getting less?

7\ it will likely be months before we know whether they meaningfully hurt Russia though.

We know sanctioning shadow tankers hurts Russia.

Republicans stopped all new Shadow tanker sanctions. That helps Russia's war. Why did they do that?

6\ As always, be careful reading too much into single sources and short-term data. And if you don't know the difference between fob and cif contracts be extra careful.

I think we're maybe seeing signs that the new sanctions are moving things in the right direction.

5\ Trading Economics seems to also report price of oil + delivery.

Urals spiked then went down and is back at pre-sanctions level. Delivery prices probably stayed constant or went up, so that implies russian oil prices might finally be dropping.

4\ I found this BP page saying Urals + shipping + insurance has averaged $9.36 cheaper than Brent for Q4 so far.

Worth watching this too. Sanctions should make that number increase.

3\ Today's Bloomberg report says 1-week volume is up Vs week before but lower than early Oct. Shipment volumes look pretty typical BUT ~35% of shipments have no announced port for delivery.

For Primorsk shipments it's ~1 month to India, ~2 to China. We'll find out later.

2\ Azeri data implies sanctions announcement seemingly caused a $1-2/bbl discount for Urals Vs Brent, but the global oil price spike was bigger = more revenue per barrel for Russia.

Earlier Bloomberg reporting on ESPO said the same.

2\ A positive: if those regions now recruit less and others don't take up the slack, then Russia's recruitment *should* go down anyway.

That's what we need.

10\ For now Russia looks like it's prioritising saving the NWF and what happens depends on their budget and borrowing success or failure.

9\ For now the NWF still looks ok. Gold prices are up 50% this year, over 100% since 2022. Russia can also devalue to get more roubles per sale.

Market price right now is 4.5tr in liquid assets. Devaluation like December 2024 could push it to ~6tr.

8\ I also think the NWF might be kind of a "backstop" for Russia's finances.

Russia can tell lenders "look I'm good for it, I have this real money and gold in the NWF to pay you back with, so gimme a good interest rate".

What happens if that's gone? Russia would surely have to pay more.

7\ The NWF has provided about 1.1tr rub to Russian banks and companies so far this year and zero to the deficit.

If Russia drains the NWF for the budget, then they can't pump 1+tr rub/year into the economy, roubles backed by real value in gold/yuan.

6\ Basically things were a bit better for Russia's NWF in 2024 than we thought, because they were saving 2024 cash in a separate account that doesn't get regularly published.

But they worsened for Russia this year because they're not saving. They had to cancel the ~1.8tr rub savings plan.

5\ That's basically gone. They updated the law twice, the newest one says ~78bn will be saved.

But the June deposit talked about covering 2024 through February 2025. I think that 78bn rub might be the Jan/Feb contributions they already deposited.

4\ Here's the ORIGINAL plan for 2025. Do you see the line at the bottom? They originally planned to save 1.8 trillion roubles this year to deposit into the NWF in 2026.