Ten days before Russians voted in State Duma elections, Dmitry Peskov was asked about raising taxes. “This is not under discussion,” the president’s press secretary said, according to Interfax. Earlier this year the finance minister, Anton Siluanov, had been more emphatic still. “These are fake leaks,” he said.
On the fourth day after the vote, the Ministry of Finance submitted its bills: a three-year budget running an annual deficit of around 2% of GDP, and amendments to the Tax Code, in the ministry’s phrase, “to increase the resilience of the budget system.”
The documents say plainly what the resilience is for. “The strategic priority of the budget,” the proposal states, “is the financial provision of defence and national security needs, and social support for participants in the special military operation” — the Kremlin’s official term for the war against Ukraine — “and their families.” The resources, the ministry says, “will ensure that the armed forces are supplied with the necessary weapons and military equipment,” along with the modernisation of defence-industry enterprises, servicemen’s pay and support for their families.
The ledger explains the urgency. The federal budget deficit reached 5.8479 trillion roubles — €60.4 billion — in the first half of the year, according to official data. By the end of July it stood at 2.8% of annual GDP, almost twice the figure planned for the entire year. The reserve fund has fallen to 1.6% of GDP. The Kremlin is borrowing from domestic banks.
Growth, meanwhile, has slowed from the peak rate of more than 4% year on year recorded in 2023–2024. The government forecasts 0.6% this year: a contraction in the first quarter, a modest rebound in the second.
Analysts name the causes in order: a sharp increase in government spending, with massive war outlays and the advance financing of state contracts; revenues weakened under sanctions pressure and volatile commodity markets. Then there is the newer line item. Ukrainian long-range strikes on strategically important targets — above all oil refineries and depots — have grown more frequent and more intense, and the spending to counter them is growing too. Both ends of that account deepen the deficit.
The bill is addressed to civilians. So-called passive income — interest on deposits, dividends, securities transactions, property sales, insurance and gift contracts — would be taxed at rates of 13%–22%, up from the present 13%–15%. Dmitry Polevoy, an economist quoted by Meduza, estimates the change would bring the budget an additional 500–700 billion roubles a year.
Purchases from foreign online shops would carry value-added tax at the maximum rate of 22% — applied immediately, though a phased increase had previously been discussed. Parcels from abroad worth up to €200, now exempt from customs duty, would carry a fee of 100 roubles, about €1.
Russian media report a parallel idea from the Federation Council: couriers and drivers who in practice work full time, said Andrei Yepishin, deputy chair of the committee on the budget and financial markets, should pay tax at a rate starting from 13% instead of the 4%–6% self-employment tax.
The ministry estimates the changes will affect about 4 million Russians, roughly 2.74% of the population. It stressed one exemption in particular: the amendments should not affect the income of participants in the war.
Large business pays its share as a windfall tax, according to the Finance Ministry’s press release: 30% of additional income for certain companies in the mining and metals sector, 20% for gold producers.
The spending priorities are named as national projects. Funding for “Machine tools” over three years rises to 135.7 billion roubles, €1.4 billion; “Unmanned aerial systems” gets 103.3 billion, €1.06 billion.
For now the floor holds. Unemployment is still low; in the poorer regions the state’s payments are generous; consumer discontent is contained. The economists’ warning concerns the longer term — that the foundations of the economy are eroding, and could eventually give way to crisis.
The numbers already drift. The consumer sentiment index calculated by the Levada Centre fell in the summer to 94 points, against 116 in the spring and summer of 2025; below 100, sentiment is more negative than positive. Petrol prices are rising and shortages have appeared where Ukrainian drones have knocked out refineries. Strikes targeting the online retailers Wildberries and Ozon have cost small businesses their inventories and their customers.
Against this backdrop there is talk of VPN blocks, and of a possible new wave of mobilisation. That, too, is not under discussion. It has been repeatedly denied. Officially.