Russian businesses have contributed 220 billion roubles to the budget for the war against Ukraine following a meeting with Putin
Prominent Russian businessmen have made voluntary contributions totalling 220 billion roubles to the Russian federal budget. This was reported by DW.
It is noted that the volume of such receipts exceeded the annual forecast, which stood at 1.7 billion roubles, by almost 130 times.
According to the publication, the impetus for these so-called voluntary contributions was a closed-door meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and representatives of big business on 26 March. During the meeting, he declared his intention to continue the war against Ukraine and called on the business community to provide financial support.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed that one of the meeting’s participants had offered to allocate a “very large sum”. According to the publication, this refers to Suleiman Kerimov, whilst Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin also took part in the initiative.
Meanwhile, Russia’s federal budget deficit continues to grow. In January–April 2026, it reached 5.877 trillion roubles, which is 1.6 times higher than the annual target of 3.786 trillion roubles.
The Gaidar Institute forecasts that by the end of the year, the deficit could be twice the planned level. Earlier, Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service reported that Russia’s actual budget deficit in 2025 stood at 8.01 trillion roubles instead of the officially stated 5.65 trillion.
The ‘National Defence’ item in the Russian budget for 2026 is allocated 12.9 trillion roubles, accounting for 29.3% of all state expenditure. This is more than the annual budgets of 62 Russian regions. Together with funding for the entire security sector, this figure reaches 17 trillion roubles.
According to Bloomberg, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank warned the country’s leadership about military spending rising to a critical level and the start of an economic contraction for the first time since 2023. They proposed cutting defence spending, but Vladimir Putin supported the Ministry of Defence’s position on maintaining military funding.
In May, the Russian government lowered its economic growth forecast to 0.4%. Economist Dmitry Polyovyi estimates the potential shortfall in non-oil and gas revenues in 2026 at between 300 and 700 billion roubles, and in 2027 at up to 1.8 trillion roubles.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a research fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, stated that the Russian economy has entered a ‘death zone’.
According to Emil Ablaev, a leading expert at the Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis, the 300 billion roubles in contributions from large businesses expected by the end of the year will cover only 10–15% of the unplanned budget deficit.
A source speaking to the publication “Expert” from one of the business associations noted that the size of the contributions is not fixed by any formal agreements and is determined individually for each participant.
