The article explains that the reason for the “voluntary contributions” was a closed meeting on March 26 between Kremlin master Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs, during which V. Putin announced his intention to continue the war against Ukraine and demanded business support.
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Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed that one of the participants (according to “Expert” sources, it is about Suleiman Kerimov) proposed to allocate a “very large amount”.
According to the Telegram channel “Mash”, Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin also joined the initiative.
A federal official told the “Expert” portal that the authorities currently expect to collect about 300 billion rubles by the end of the year, but there are no exact agreements, and the size of the contributions is a personal matter for each individual.
In this context, the 300 billion rubles in “donations” expected from the oligarchs by the end of the year could cover 10–15% of the unplanned deficit, estimated Emil Ablayev, the leading expert of the Macroeconomic Analysis Center.
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However, such unofficial taxes pose a risk of rule uncertainty for businesses.
“One paid one amount, another a larger one,” explained a source from one of the business associations.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the federal budget deficit for January–April 2026 amounted to 5.877 trillion rubles – 1.6 times more than the annual plan (3.786 trillion). The Gaidar Institute of Economics in Moscow predicts that by the end of the year the deficit may double the planned level.
German intelligence previously stated that the actual 2025 deficit was 8.01 trillion, not the officially announced 5.65 trillion. Meanwhile, 12.9 trillion rubles (29.3% of expenditures) are allocated for national defense in 2026 – more than the annual budgets of 62 subjects of the Russian Federation. Together with expenses for the entire armed forces bloc, the amount reaches 17 trillion rubles.
According to Bloomberg data, senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank warned V. Putin that current war expenditures are approaching an unacceptable level, and the economy has begun to contract for the first time since early 2023. They proposed reducing defense spending, but the Kremlin master supported the Ministry of Defense, instructing to cut any expense lines except military ones.
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