Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Tuesday that Russian authorities plan to sell off state-seized assets to boost revenues.
“We plan to intensify the privatization of property coming into the treasury,” Siluanov told a board meeting of Russia’s Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo), according to the state-run news agency TASS.
Rosimushchestvo oversees the temporary administration of seized assets.
Siluanov said the government expects to earn at least 100 billion rubles ($1.22 billion) from asset sales in 2025, including those confiscated through court rulings.
He did not specify how authorities plan to use the proceeds, but Russia is projecting a budget deficit of 1.17 trillion rubles (0.5% of GDP) in 2025 amid a surge in defense spending.
“New development strategies for state-owned companies will have to be approved to increase their involvement in achieving national goals,” Siluanov was quoted as saying by TASS.
In 2024, The Moscow Times’ Russian-language edition estimated that the state seized a record 544.7 billion rubles ($6.71 billion) in assets from at least 67 companies across the food, real estate and retail sectors.
Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has carried out a major redistribution of wealth, including the nationalization of 1 trillion rubles ($10.8 billion) worth of strategic assets.
Officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have denied that Russia is undergoing de-privatization or nationalization of its economy.
