Strained by the need to finance its war machine, the Russian government said on Tuesday that it posted a $47 billion budget deficit in 2022, which is the second-highest since the break up of the Soviet Union.
The budget gap reached 3.3 trillion rubles in 2022, or 2.3 percent of the size of the Russian economy, Anton Siluanov, the country’s finance minister, said during a government meeting on Tuesday.
Russia’s revenues increased by 2.8 trillion rubles in 2022, or $40 billion, but that was not enough to cover rapidly increasing expenditures, which skyrocketed by 6.4 trillion rubles, or $92 billion, officials said.
At the meeting, government officials presented the economic situation as positive, with Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister, saying that “overall, those indicators aren’t bad.”
Making no specific reference to the war, Mr. Silanov, the finance minister, said: “Despite the geopolitical situation, the…
