Economics

Kremlin Plots Pullback from Stimulus Despite Rising Infections

  • Nation battles daily rise in new cases with total over 700,000
  • Outlays in 2021 will be lower than this year’s $320 billion

Passengers wearing protective face masks alight an escalator inside a Moscow Metro train station in Moscow.

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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Russia is already looking for ways to pare back its frugal pandemic stimulus package even as infections continue to climb by more than 6,000 a day.

Next-year’s outlays will be below this year’s planned 23 trillion rubles ($325 billion), according to two people in the government, who asked to remain unnamed as discussions are not public yet. A final decision hasn’t been taken yet on the size of next year’s budget, but it will likely be around 20 trillion rubles, one of the people said.