Today, August 19, is the fifth consecutive Wednesday without an OFZ auction. Russia's finance ministry normally sells government bonds on Wednesdays; on July 20 the ministry announced that auctions were "suspended to stabilise the market situation," and it has not named a return date since. According to the July Russia Chartbook by the KSE Institute, this is the first such stop since the 2020 pandemic.
What "we can't borrow" looks like in the documents
The last auction, on July 15, was officially declared failed: OFZ-PK issue 29028 drew no acceptable bids. The borrowing plan for the third quarter is 1.5 trillion rubles; as of mid-August, less than one percent has been sold. That is exactly what our link-2 indicator measures — and why the estimate on the front page currently uses the "borrowing frozen" scenario: liquid reserves cover roughly 5.8–6.7 months of orderly financing on those terms. What an OFZ is, and why a failed auction cannot be hidden, we explain separately.
The news: the ministry registers 1.5 trillion in floaters
The pause does not mean inactivity. The ministry has registered two new issues of OFZ-PK — floating-coupon bonds — totalling 1.5 trillion rubles; placement dates, per the ministry's release, "will be determined after auctions resume." This is the comeback plan, and the choice of instrument shows how it expects to return.
An OFZ-PK is a floating-rate bond whose coupon resets against RUONIA, the overnight money-market benchmark. That leaves the buyer with much less exposure to changing interest rates than a fixed-coupon bond, while the budget bears the changing coupon cost. In late 2022, after mobilisation, floaters — placed mostly with state banks — helped close the annual borrowing plan within weeks. Registering new OFZ-PK says one thing plainly: the ministry is preparing to use that route again.
Why not now
The reason for the pause is the price of money. Average OFZ yields are around 15.1%, with long paper near 15.9% against a key rate of 14%: the market demands a premium, and the ministry has chosen to wait rather than borrow at those yields. It has an argument: Rosstat has now recorded weekly deflation for a second week running, and the market prices in further rate cuts. If rates fall, waiting will make future debt cheaper. But every month without borrowing pushes the deficit — 6.455 trillion rubles over seven months — onto the reserves: in the first half-year, spending rose 16% year-on-year while oil and gas revenues fell 23%. And in this waiting game, time works for the banks: they are in no hurry, and the longer the market stands still, the better the terms they can dictate.
What this changes in the model
Our model counts money, not buyers' motives. If the floaters are placed and quarterly borrowing returns to plan, the link-2 indicator cools mechanically: the registered threshold — "less than 20% of the plan sold" — was set in advance and does not move. The model then switches from the "borrowing frozen" scenario (5.8–6.7 months) to the longer ones. We will count forced placements to state banks too — but we will say what they were: bought by a market, or handed out by decree. The difference is not in the quarter's number; it is in how long such a channel can last.
We name no dates here either: the pause may end next Wednesday, or it may run until the rate comes down. Forecasts that "Russia can no longer borrow" have historically fired too early — which is exactly why this monitor shows intervals and registered thresholds, not a countdown clock.