When I mention Trump or Xi "bailing out" Russia, I mean in the sense of doing something like unlocking financial sanctions that limit Russia's ability to pull back earnings (iirc usually yuan or rupees) they made from post-2022 exports.

I think I saw a KSE report on this.

Nice pic thanks! Easier to read context with it. I was using the CBR link Prune have and doings some searching.

I don't know how to interpret that, except I still think it fits with the idea Russia's lying about their spending plans, but we'll see soon. There could be other reasons.

4\ but I think it's possible that Russia is lying about its budget again and actually won't cut spending now as they promise.

Pretty soon we should have September preliminary budget numbers, and hopefully someone can send me the amended amended budget tables.

3\ AND Kommersant reporting on the amended amended budget says Russia plans large spending cuts through December. If true & Russia is honest, then the government shouldn't be causing liquidity problems that need repo to smooth out?

I'm sure there are other reasons to do repo though.

2\ This year Russia said they made advanced payments in Jan/Feb instead, so shouldn't the money already be in circulation?:

"The finance ministry puts this year's early spending spree down to the advance payment of contracts".

www.reuters.com/markets/euro...

1\ In 2024 I read the repo "temporary money printing" in December was because the government was gonna make major end-of-year payments, so they were hoarding cash and just needed to get a little bit to the banks to tide them over until the govt spending flooded back into the economy.

I wonder if this is related to what I posted here.

Too much supply = price down = yields up for fixed coupon OFZ-PDs.

But would variable OFZ-PKs prevent that?

It'll be funny if they do 3tr OFZ-PK expecting interest rates to drop another 10% but rates go up instead.

Russia's repo "temporary money printing" started on 9th September and has happened every week since. First week =0.75 trillion roubles, this week = 1.46tr rub.

Is it temporary if you do it every week?

For comparison, there were zero in Sept/Oct 2024. Total outstanding peaked at ~1.4tr in Dec.

2\ Higher yields = Russia generally has to pay more for new debt. If Russia spends more on finance in future, it should have less cash to fund its relentless & unprovoked murder of innocent Ukrainians.

+1% seems a bit low to me given what their financial numbers look like, but I'm not a finance pro

1\ Russia has said it desperately needs to borrow a lot more money, which should mean higher finance costs.

Not just because they're borrowing more, but their *rates* should get higher as they exhaust the best bank offerings.

Most bond yields are up, by ~1% versus September.

Reference prices for refined precious metals | Bank of Russia

2\ CBR gold price source

www.cbr.ru/eng/hd_base/...

I think this matters because it shows there probably isn't another NWF rouble account hiding somewhere.

1\ disbursed over 55bn rub but sold under 5.2 tonnes of gold.

CBR max gold price was 10.05bn rub/tonne, so the gold doesn't cover it all.

I think this means they used up some of the rouble income. So they're likely not refilling the rouble account that will later replenish gold/yuan.

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While it's appropriate to criticize Jake Sullivan, the main responsibility for the failed escalation management strategy rests with Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz.

The Russian drones operations reveal two things that Europeans seem unable to admit to themselves. The first is that they are unwilling/incapable of stopping these operations and seem helpless to keep them from multiplying. The second is that the US government doesnt care and will not help Europe.

3\ This all means: their current budget plan accounts for 8.65tr oil&gas revenue Vs ~8.3tr before.

There's now less room for oil&gas income to save their budget with a surprise bumper cash surge.

2\ This up from their mid-year estimate which was 8.32tr.

They need 2.043tr more in Oct-Dec. Oct-Dec 2024 was 2.804tr.

They need ~72% of last year's O&G income. August was 65% and September was 75%.

I think their new goal looks realistic.

Russia's budget will lose about $17 billion in oil and gas revenues in 2025 Russia's oil and gas revenues fell by more than 20% in the first nine months of 2025

1\ "In September, the Russian authorities slightly raised their expectations to 8.65 trillion rubles" for 2025 total oil and gas revenues.

finance.liga.net/en/all/novos...

5\ Why am I doing this?

I want to understand whether Russia's finances are doing better or worse than needed for their plans.

My table just gives us a solid reference point to judge performance against.

Russian oil producers receive over $370 mln under fuel damper mechanism in September In August, such payments amounted to 80.4 bln rubles

4\ The oil mineral extraction tax is easy to estimate but subsidies to refineries cancel them out. With high fuel prices, Russia cut payments by ~50bn rub Vs Aug. That explains ~50bn of the increased total revenue. I don't plan for that

tass.com/economy/2024...

3\ and it was 580bn!

Down from last year but August was 505bn. Last month: below my low. This month = my high. Why?

2\ For reference my original. Note the "high" oil&gas estimate was 580bn. The other numbers have changed but the percentage assumption didn't. My old spreadsheet was messy and I think I put a bug in.

bsky.app/profile/leos...

1\ Russia's Sept oil income was exactly my high-end estimate. I redid my spreadsheet and fixed some bugs.

3.5-4.4tr rub is my estimated range of what Russia will report for Jan-Oct deficit. Mid-mid scenario is just over 4.0tr.

Thanks. That sounds really really disappointing and frustrating.

Europe had a wake up siren in February 2022. I'd hope they're addressing the obvious, predictable issues from then by now or sometime soon.

5\ I know a 1tr uncertainty sounds like a lot. But (i) I'm just giving scenarios so we can judge whether results are better/worse than expected and (ii) Russia says it's missing its plan by 4.5tr rub. My uncertainties don't look so bad in that context.

4\ Russian could change taxes or spending to help later months. And early months had big % increases in finance costs. But some finance costs went up in June-Octover 2024. We're approaching the time of the year when 2024 already saw the increases, so maybe 2025 won't go up as much Vs 2024?

3\ an example of how this is uncertain. I just look at last year's expenses and revenue and then scale by the range of % changes we've seen for other months this year versus last

E.g. April 2025 had +11% spending Vs Apr 2024. But July was +27% year over year.

Then I guesstimate oil price effects

2\ the range is very wide. Lots of uncertainties in how changing russian tax laws will affect 2025.

Daily expenses on the electronic portal have been quite low so far, below low case. But August had pretty big end-of-month payments. Maybe that will happen again?

1\ I redid my spreadsheet and got different numbers 😂 my scenarios for the Jan-Sep total deficit Russia will report are: mid-mid estimate 4.1tr, range from 3.5-4.5tr.

New spreadsheet is tidier, I will do proper checks next month to improve regular calcs.

4\ I just saw people talking about this article as if it was all upgrades that caused the drop in interception rate. The FT article covers an important story but extra professional input on numbers would be nice.