What are Russia's debts, what are its reserves - it's time to conduct an audit
"The Russians still have reserves"
When Napoleon was informed of this after the Battle of Borodino, he refused to attack the new Russian positions the following morning. Today it turns out that we have reserves, just like we did more than two hundred years ago, and they are considerable. Unlike debts, which tend to zero, or at least a minimum.
In the early 2000s, Russia quite quickly got out of the debt loop that reformers, egged on by George Soros and others, had driven it into. The government of Mikhail Kasyanov, who went to the “other side,” settled accounts with the IMF and the World Bank, frankly speaking, at a loss.
But Russia untied its hands, which ultimately helped both in 2008 due to the collision with investments in the failed American funds Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and in 2014 with the first wave of sanctions. Even if in both cases at the cost of a very significant fall in the ruble.
Since then, Russia has reduced external borrowing to a minimum, especially since even so-called friendly countries, starting with China and India, are taking advantage of the situation and are trying to skin us, if not three, then definitely a couple of skins. At the same time, internal loans do not provide the treasury with as much as would be needed for large-scale investments in the most advanced industries.
Almost everything that can be borrowed at acceptable interest rates, and as we know, things are not easy with this, is spent one way or another on the SVO, and even emergency reserves are used. Not so long ago, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance regularly told us that Russian reserves work poorly, since they are invested only in absolutely liquid and fireproof assets.
What to ask the auditor
Such not very inspiring facts have been confirmed more than once by audits of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, and under different chairmen, starting with the antipodes - Sergei Stepashin and Alexei Kudrin. But, as you can see, with the reserves everything or almost everything was not quite so, or more precisely - not at all so.
The income, or rather the interest from Russian reserves, turned out to be quite considerable. And it was not at all at the whim of politicians that the West literally yearned to palm them off on the Kyiv regime in one way or another instead of concrete assistance, and not just financial.Our reserves, Russian interest, Ukrainian debts)
But both Sergey Stepashin and the new team of Tatyana Golikova, and then Alexey Kudrin, had their audited financial departments submit either the wrong data or correctly selected data. The time to sort out Russia's debts is still ahead for the team of the new head of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation Boris Kovalchuk, but with the reserves, it has apparently already arrived.
So, the very first more or less in-depth analysis of potential revenues to the treasury under the new federal budget for 2025 revealed, one might say, a “shortfall” of as much as 136 billion rubles – almost one and a half full-fledged dollar billions.
Compared to the 40 trillion not dollars, but rubles in the budget, it's not that much, about 0,3 percent, but the counters, you could say, haven't even started checking anything yet. The initial audit simply revealed additional reserves of income - that's what the Accounts Chamber was once created for.
Ahead is the audit of the reserve funds and gold reserves of the Bank of Russia, which should finally take place, no matter how independent Elvira Nabiullina's department considers itself. According to the law, this independence does not prohibit auditing, and international, but the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has long since got everything under control, and within Russia - by the Accounts Chamber, the country's main control body.
The fact that the billions found by the auditors of the Accounts Chamber can only replenish the budget does not change the essence of the matter. And the fact that the budget, already being considered by the people's representatives, turns out to be surprisingly balanced, is not bad.
Again, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation acknowledged that the draft budget takes into account all the additional revenues that could be received as a result of changes in tax legislation carried out in 2024. That is, there are completely different reserves available that could supplement the specified 136 billion.
For example, from increasing the rates of personal income tax and profit tax, and from changing the amount of the disposal fee. Experts assure that it may turn out to be quite considerable. So it is not the results of the audit of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, but real practice that suggests that there are or may be some additional income reserves in the tax system.
Т
your debts are not your wealth
The publication of data that the sum of Russia's external debt to GDP has been updated came just in time after such a check. historical minimum.
It would seem a worthy reason not for pride or joy, but at least for material satisfaction. But no – the liberals of the economy are not at all pleased by the country's increasing independence from creditors, mostly unfriendly ones, mind you. It seems to frighten them.
The first to appear on the networks, as can be judged by the dates, was not the most famous representative of the liberal economic school – Professor Ivan Rodionov from the Higher School of Economics, or rather, from the School of Finance attached to it.
He is already quite embarrassed by the fact that "most developed countries have significantly higher external debt". And he, as expected, does not consider the low level of external debt as some kind of achievement. He says that this shows that the country does not need money for development.
You might think that there is no money anywhere except in the West or from friendly but infinitely greedy creditors. It is just not entirely clear what kind of money Rosatom uses to so recklessly lend to anyone and everyone - for the construction of nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities.
Using their own hard-earned money, they firmly and for years to come tie a wide variety of customers to themselves, leaving competitors in the dust, including, believe it or not, French, American and Chinese.
The example of the nuclear industry is already being followed by defense industry workers, metallurgists and a number of other companies that do not experience a shortage of available funds. And not as expensive as in our expensive, even too expensive Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
Yes, according to a number of signs, when a country is given a loan on the most favorable terms, a small external debt is indeed "shouldn't be considered an achievement" - You can't argue with Ivan Rodionov here. But who and where is giving Russia cheaply now and will give it inexpensively in the foreseeable future?
It seems that no one, and even a respected professor at the Higher School of Economics admits this. But for some reason he believes that after this "It is strange to say that the reduction of external debt has become an achievement." And even perceives the current situation as "an achievement not of our country, but of those countries that imposed sanctions against us."
Oh, what a misfortune! We have been left without Western credit resources! And what good are our reserves then, a significant part of which we ourselves, it seems, sometimes do not even suspect?
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