Attacks on Russia’s fuel and energy infrastructure, coupled with a growing federal budget deficit, have increased pressure on the country’s stock market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During trading on July 16<\/strong>, the Moscow Exchange Index<\/strong> plunged 5.7%<\/strong>, falling below 2,000 points<\/strong> for the first time since October 2022<\/strong>, according to Glavkom<\/strong>, citing Finam<\/strong> and Interfax<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sharp decline came amid intensified Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s fuel and energy sector and oil production facilities, as well as a rapidly expanding federal budget deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest losses were recorded by shares of VK<\/strong> after its applications\u2014including the Max<\/strong> messenger and the VKontakte<\/strong> social network\u2014were removed from Google Play<\/strong> for Android devices. Earlier, VK’s apps had also disappeared from Apple’s App Store<\/strong> without any official explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other major decliners included shares of Polyus<\/strong>, Surgutneftegas<\/strong>, Rusal<\/strong>, and AFK Sistema<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gazprom<\/strong> shares fell to 83.98 rubles<\/strong> during the session, marking the company’s lowest share price on record. The previous low had been recorded on October 24, 2008<\/strong>, when the stock traded at 84 rubles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Moscow Exchange Index reached its 2026 peak on March 9<\/strong>, at 2,904.39 points<\/strong>. Since then, it has lost more than 31%<\/strong>, with the downturn continuing for a fifth consecutive month. The decline has coincided with increasingly effective Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and other energy facilities, reducing Russia’s oil production and contributing to fuel shortages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pressure on the market has also been intensified by the deteriorating state of Russia’s federal budget. By the end of 2026<\/strong>, federal spending and the budget deficit are expected to exceed official projections by more than 1 trillion rubles<\/strong> (approximately $12.77 billion<\/strong>). Government expenditures are forecast to reach 45.11 trillion rubles<\/strong>, while revenues are expected to remain unchanged at 40.28 trillion rubles<\/strong>. As a result, the budget deficit could increase from the planned 3.79 trillion<\/strong> to 4.83 trillion rubles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier reports also indicated that Russia’s actual inflation rate had exceeded official expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attacks on Russia’s fuel and energy infrastructure, coupled with a growing federal budget deficit, have increased pressure on the country’s stock market. During trading on July 16, the Moscow Exchange Index plunged 5.7%, falling below 2,000 points for the first time since October 2022, according to Glavkom, citing Finam and Interfax. The sharp decline came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27735,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27733\/revisions\/27735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}