Russia will sell shares in its largest oil ports to cover the budget deficit

Russian authorities are preparing to privatize the state’s stake in the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP) in order to raise funds to plug the hole in the federal budget, whose deficit reached nearly 6 trillion rubles in January–April. Following the state stake in Aeroflot, 20% of the shares in this port operator have been included in the privatization plan for 2026–2028. 

This was reported by the propaganda agency Interfax, citing a corresponding order from Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The entire state stake in the holding company will be put up for sale. The holding unites two strategic oil ports that account for over a third of Russia’s oil exports—Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and Primorsk on the Baltic Sea—as well as the port of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region. The main shareholder of NCSP, with a 60% stake, is the state-owned company Transneft, which acquired these shares in 2018 following the arrest of the previous owner, billionaire Ziyavuddin Magomedov. According to Reuters estimates, the aggressor state hopes to raise about 33 billion rubles from the sale of 20% of the port operator’s shares, while Aeroflot’s planned stake is valued at 45 billion rubles.

Meanwhile, production and sales of agricultural machinery have plummeted in Russia.

After three years of unexpected economic growth, Russia is facing a sudden slowdown—war costs, inflation, and falling oil prices have begun to weigh on an economy that until recently seemed resilient to sanctions.

Consumer lending in Russia has fallen to a six-year low.