Deripaska: Russia Will Run Out Of Money In 2024

Billionaire Oleg Deripaska said Russia could find its coffers empty already next year and needs investment from “friendly” countries to break the hold of sanctions on the economy, Bloomberg News reported.

Photo Insert: Deripaska’s comments come as Moscow considers raising taxes or imposing levies on companies to help pay for the conflict.

“There will be no money already next year,” Deripaska said Thursday at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum in Siberia.

“We will need foreign investors.” Funds are now running low and “that’s why they’ve already begun to shake us down,” said Deripaska, founder of United Co, Rusal International PJSC, the biggest aluminum producer outside China.

Moscow has to impose new taxes and bleed more companies to sustain its war in Ukraine.

Deripaska’s comments are among the most outspoken by a prominent business leader as the government looks to turn the screws on large companies after ending last year with a record fiscal deficit and the budget still deep in the red to start 2023.

“Borrowing is expensive now and the money saved up in the National Wellbeing Fund will run out by the end of 2024. So they will have to economize and cut spending,” Russian economist Alexander Isakov also warned earlier.

Deripaska’s comments come as Moscow considers raising taxes or imposing levies on companies to help pay for the conflict, Business Insider and the Associated Press (AP) also reported.

Forbes reported in November that the war had cost Russia $82 billion to date. Reuters estimated that Moscow would spend about $155 billion on defense and security in 2023.

A few days after the invasion Deripaska used a Telegram post to call for peace talks "as fast as possible," Reuters reported, adding: "Peace is very important."

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