Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska warns Moscow likely to run out of money next year

New Delhi: Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has warned that Moscow may run out of money by 2024 as it struggles to replace western investors.

The energy and metals tycoon, who was once called Russia’s richest person, said, “there will be no money already next year. We will need foreign investors.”

Deripaska himself has been the victim of sanctions imposed by the US, UK and EU against Russia.

He also went on to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said the government should “stop dreaming about some special place for Russia in the world and go about its own business.”

Speaking at an investment conference in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, the Russian oligarch stated that the Ukraine war had disrupted supply chains, deprived Russian companies of western technology, and taken hundreds of thousands of working men out of the economy, reported The Times.

According to Bloomberg, Deripaska said funds are running low and “that’s why they’ve (the Russian government) already begun to shake us down.”

“We thought we were a European country. Now, for the next 25 years, we will think more about our Asian past,” he added.

The remark comes amid warnings from the European ratings agency Scope that Russia’s budget deficit may rise to 3.5 percent of GDP, up from the government’s forecast of 2 percent of GDP. In 2022, an official shortfall of 2.3 percent was recorded.

As per a Reuters report, Scope stated, “Sanctions and the war are constraining Russia’s fiscal flexibility … due to lower energy export revenues, higher war-related spending and a steady decline in GDP.”

“For now, Russia can finance its deficit relatively easily by drawing down the national wealth fund, set to amount to only 3.7 per cent of GDP by end-2024 from 10.4 per cent of GDP at end-2021,” it added.

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