Economic statecraft, int macro, Russia, Ukraine, Senior Fellow at @piie @Bruegel_org. Director International Program @kse_ua
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2/ Federal budget is back to a large deficit in April. A deficit of 3.4 trillion for the first four months of 2023—already 17% above the full-year budget target. 
2/ Publication on what is and what is not working on oil price cap/embargo and how it can be made better.
2/ China has stepped in to support Russia's access to chips. 
2/ Russia's export of crude and products is sharply up and behind Russia's large current account surplus. 
2/ New friends that export semiconductors to Russia, top suppliers in 2022. 
2/ The MinFin lacked creativity forecasting taxes as a constant to GDP. VAT is Russia's second most important tax after oil and gas; it depends on domestic consumption and imports. Profit taxes depend on the domestic economy and dividends, with Gazprom being the largest payer
2/ The oil price cap, if set at this price, will fully water down the EU embargo, providing convenient shipping services to Russia to help it meet its budgetary needs. 
2/ Russia's GDP number collected by Rosstat has always been problematic. Issues related to the deflator, sectoral composition, input from the regions. 1-2pp off before 2022. 2Q2022 is probably arbitrary. Nice comments on the personalities involved here. carnegieendowment.org/politika/87404
2/ Ruble is no largely determined by Russia's trade balance. Current account surplus ($180bn YTD in Aug.) this year will be enough to rebuild most of the reserves frozen by sanctions (~$300bn) 
2/ The purpose of the oil price cap is to give an exit valve for Russian oil (to bring more Russian oil to the market, not less) at a lower price, as concern was that the EU oil embargo to come on in early 2023 will be too binding. Here are the scenarios. 
2/ Cross-border transactions for trade are still flowing freely. $ 167bn Jan-July in Current Account surplus. Gazprom bank plays a major role, being a de-facto Central Bank for Russia, even if not an effective one as the Ruble is strengthening too much for the budget. 
2/ The reasons are numerous and understandable. Our preliminary analysis suggests the importance of competing moral concerns, flexibility, and demand stability. 
2/ 🇷🇺Exports are up 20% in 2q2022. Urals discount might have fallen marginally, Brent was up 64% to $113, and Russia's average Urals was $80 (the Urals was $70 in April based on monthly data). Gas, coal and aluminum prices are all up sharply; we know that.
2/ Ukraine got only $6.8 bn in cash from the international community since the beginning of the war. With the monthly fiscal gap reaching $4.5 in May alone, this is, I am sorry, peanuts. 
2/ Russia has accumulated more than $100 bn in FX since the beginning of the war. The budget is in RUB 1.6 tr surplus so far. Cutting off Russia for a few weeks from oil with a complete embargo would achieve nothing, but a spike in commodity prices that would hurt global growth. 
2/ Russia is enjoying historically high current account surpluses due to high oil and gas and other commodity prices. See what Russia 🇷🇺exports below (5 year average as shares vary a little due to price and volume changes). 
2/ Overview of the existing ECB facilities ecb.europa.eu/mopo/implement…).
2/ Sanctions are a moving target as Russia's economy is bound to start adjusting to the new reality. The banking system was hard hit with unprecedented bank runs, but banking liquidity appears to be normalizing now (albeit at still stressed levels). 