Russia's Fraying Financial Safety Net Hangs by a Thread

MIN READJan 19, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

With Russia's rainy-day fund used to cover budget shortfalls exhausted, the Kremlin has fewer options to manage its financial problems.

(IAN WALTON/Getty Images)

Russia's sovereign wealth reserves, once bloated by years of abundant petroleum revenue, are today just shadows of their former selves. And on Feb. 1, the country's Reserve Fund, designed to help the government balance its budget, will officially disappear as it is legally recombined with the National Wealth Fund, a separate pot of money that backs up Russia's pensions. But the merger is a move in name only: It will come after the country's Finance Ministry appears already to have drained the Reserve Fund's remaining $17 billion in cash to plug a looming budget hole. With Russia's financial security blanket wearing thin, the question as national elections approach will become whether its people will continue to trust the current administration to manage the country's increasingly shaky finances....