22OCT

Moscow posts surplus as shares sink

2 min read

19:10UTC

Russia recorded its first monthly budget surplus of 2026 in June, and its sovereign fund's liquid assets rose. Its stock market has now fallen for seventeen straight weeks.

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Key takeaway

Russia's reserves are lasting longer than forecast, and this briefing said otherwise for three months.

Russia recorded its first monthly budget surplus of 2026 in June, 0.28tn roubles, on Finance Ministry data reported on 9 July⁠¹. Liquid assets in the Russia National Wealth Fund, Moscow's rainy-day reserve, rose 200bn roubles month on month to 3.61tn roubles (about $46.4bn) as of 1 July, with the total fund at 13.104tn roubles⁠².

That requires a correction to this briefing's own framing. Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov projected in May that liquid fund assets would fall to roughly $12.5bn by year-end, and the Finance Ministry then topped the fund up by 1.3tn roubles to cover the first-half shortfall. Lowdown has run a reserve-depletion narrative on this topic since April on that basis. At about $46bn on 1 July with five months left to run, the projection looks unlikely to be met, and readers who took the depletion timetable from us should discount it.

The wider fiscal picture has not turned, and the surplus should not be read as recovery. The half-year deficit stands at 5.73tn roubles, 2.5% of GDP and 2.35tn roubles worse than the same point last year, with spending running 16.1% above 2025⁠³. The Finance Ministry attributes June's swing to front-loaded contract advances tapering off rather than to revenue picking up, which loads the heavier bill onto the second half.

The equity market tells a third story again. The Moscow Exchange index has fallen for 17 consecutive weeks, its longest unbroken decline since 1997, back to the level it touched on the day of the February 2022 invasion. Retail investors kept buying through it, putting 910bn roubles into brokerage accounts in the first quarter with equities at 30% of their portfolios. Alexander Kolyandr of the Center for European Policy Analysis, who published the figures on 16 July, argues the slide suits the Kremlin in the short run, since savings shifting into bank deposits help fund state borrowing, while it undercuts Vladimir Putin's target of doubling market capitalisation to two-thirds of GDP by 2030 and starves the domestic technology drive of capital⁠⁴.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Russia's public finances sent two very different signals in the same week. On one hand, the government posted its first monthly budget surplus of 2026 in June, a small one at 0.28tn roubles, and the cash reserves it can actually spend (its "liquid" National Wealth Fund assets) grew to 3.61tn roubles (about $46bn). On the other hand, Russia's main stock market index has now fallen for 17 straight weeks in a row, the longest losing streak since 1997, dropping all the way back to where it stood on the day the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. For context: over the first six months of the year, Russia still spent 5.73tn roubles more than it collected, a deficit that is worse than the same period last year even after June's surplus. So the budget picture and the stock market picture are pulling in opposite directions, and it is not yet clear which one better reflects the underlying health of Russia's wartime economy.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Retail investors poured 910bn roubles into brokerage accounts in the first quarter, the most since 2021, pushing equities to 30% of retail portfolios; the 17-week Moscow Exchange slide therefore erodes household savings exposure directly, a channel the budget figures alone do not capture.

Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov's own May forecast put liquid National Wealth Fund assets at roughly $12.5bn by year-end. The actual figure, about $46bn with five months still to run, means either that forecast was too pessimistic or June's inflow will not repeat; the Finance Ministry has not addressed which.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Russia

Russia

Consensus view: CEPA's Alexander Kolyandr, writing on 16 July, reads the Moscow Exchange's 17-week losing streak, the longest unbroken decline since 1997 and back to its invasion-day lows, as a leading confidence indicator driven by a smaller-than-expected June rate cut, falling commodity prices and a strong rouble hurting exporters, one that predates and diverges from the headline budget figures.

Counter-view: Russia's Finance Ministry attributes June's surplus, and the narrowing of the half-year deficit, to front-loaded contract advances from earlier in the year tapering off rather than to a genuine revenue recovery; half-year spending still runs 16.1% above 2025.

Key tension: Whether the June surplus and rising National Wealth Fund liquidity mark a real stabilisation, or a one-off timing effect that masks the equity market's own reading of sustained confidence loss.

Sources:Interfax·Russian Ministry of Finance·CEPA

Mentions:Russia National Wealth Fund →Moscow Exchange →Vladimir Putin →Maxim Reshetnikov →Center for European Policy Analysis →Moscow →Russia →Kremlin →

First Reported In

Update #24 · Fedorov sacked as the front stands still

Interfax· 19 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Russia raids reserves to cover deficit

The Finance Ministry's early-July top-up of the National Wealth Fund is the immediate predecessor to the liquidity figures reported this week, and undercuts the depletion timetable this topic has carried since April.

Occurred 1 Jun 2026

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Urals crude nearly triples in weeks

The oil price rally underlying the July rebound drove Russia's one-off June budget surplus.

Occurred 23 Jul 2026

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This Event

Moscow posts surplus as shares sink

The reserve-depletion timetable this briefing has carried since April no longer fits the figures.

Led to

Banks stopped buying Russia's war debt

June's budget surplus from an oil rally did not reverse the structural deficit Skvortsov described.

Occurred 31 Jul 2026

Read story →

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.