Order № 2328-р, signed on 28 August and published the next day, lets the grid company Rosseti Yug spend 306,944.8 thousand roubles left unused since the 2017 budget. The money was appropriated for energy infrastructure serving the 2018 football World Cup. It will now be used to improve the reliability of the Astrakhan region's grid.
What the document does
One new paragraph carries the whole decision:
“Under article 21 of the federal law ‘On the federal budget for 2026 and the planning period of 2027 and 2028’, the public joint-stock company ‘Rosseti Yug’ may in 2026 use the funds from the unused contribution to its charter capital. The public joint-stock company ‘Rossiyskie Seti’ transferred that contribution from funds provided for in annexes 9 and 33 to the federal law ‘On the federal budget for 2017 and the planning period of 2018 and 2019’ to finance energy-infrastructure facilities used for the 2018 football World Cup in the Russian Federation. The 306,944.8 thousand roubles may fund measures to improve the reliability of the Astrakhan region's electricity-grid system; financing those measures is intended to reduce failures on power lines and on equipment or devices with a nominal voltage of 110 kV and above.”
Money that was already spent, on paper
The sum was appropriated in the 2017 budget as a contribution to charter capital, paid to Rossiyskie Seti and passed down to its southern subsidiary — and part of it was never used. It was booked as 2017 expenditure when it was paid. Redirecting it in 2026 therefore requires no new appropriation: it adds nothing to this year's spending and nothing to this year's deficit. The order also amends the heading of the table in its annex № 2 so that it cites part 7 of article 21 of the 2026 budget law alongside part 12 of article 21 of the 2023 law. That accounting treatment allows money raised under one budget law to be spent under another.
Nine years in the account
The contribution comes from the 2017 budget. The order being amended dates from 11 October 2023. The money will be used in 2026 — nine years after it was appropriated, and eight after the tournament it was meant to serve. This is a spending decision without new money: when current spending limits are tight, Russia draws on unused balances from old capital contributions.
What this means for our model
Nothing, and that is the point. The budget deficit — 65 out of 100, the strongest of the eight — measures the rolling twelve-month deficit as a share of GDP. By design, it cannot register this transaction: the rouble was counted as spending in 2017 and will not be counted again. That is what makes the manoeuvre attractive, and it is why it is a signal rather than a number. A government that repairs a regional grid out of a nine-year-old balance is a government that did not find the money in this year's budget lines. The rest is on the monitor.
What we do not know
Why the contribution lay unused for nine years, and how many balances like it remain. The list of construction projects is in annex № 2, which the order does not reproduce. The document sets a target — fewer failures on lines and equipment of 110 kV and above — but no date by which to reach it, and it gives no reason for the repairs. Nothing in its text refers to the cause of those failures, and we do not supply one.