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Months of infighting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev over Russia's budget ended on Monday - with Medvedev on top. At a meeting with senior government officials, the President announced a strikingly pessimistic set of spending priorities until 2012, based on conservative estimates suggesting that Russia will remain hampered by the economic crisis into next year and beyond...
...said this year's budget deficit will be at least 7% of GDP - "and that's an optimistic forecast." On Friday, government figures for the first quarter showed the economy shrank at an annual rate of 9.5%, a radical revision after officials forecast in February that Russia's GDP would decline by only 2.2% this year. The International Monetary Fund has predicted that Russia's GDP could drop as much as 6% this year. "In 2009, unfortunately, we expect a sharper fall in the GDP than we had thought," Medvedev said. (Watch an interview with TIME's 2007 Person...
...said that since the government is tightening spending and basing its budget on "conservative" oil price forecasts of $50 a barrel in 2010, $52 in 2011 and $53 in 2012, he believes the fund could begin replenishing itself as early as in 2011. Part of the reason for Russia's current predicament is earlier over-optimistic estimates for oil revenues, which make up anywhere between a third and a half of Russia's budget. (See pictures of Russians celebrating Victory...
...Kudrin also told the press that Russia will not turn to the International Monetary Fund for help, but that the country would consider borrowing more than $7 billion from overseas in 2010 and an additional $10 billion over the following few years. But his emphasis was on lower outlays: "A review of spending, a transition to targeted spending and saving - these are the key words in the next three years," he said. In an apparent swipe at comments by Putin and his team, the Finance Minister said, "There are some optimistic forecasts that there will be some growth next year...
...These levers are likely to play a significant role in Ukraine's upcoming presidential elections, set for next January. Last time around, in 2004, Russia and Putin threw their weight behind then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, whose initial victory was overturned after massive protests in Kiev against vote-rigging, which turned into the so-called Orange Revolution. This time, analysts say the Kremlin will probably diversify its approach, with support for both Yanukovych and previously hostile Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, President Yushchenko's former Orange ally...