The liquid assets of Russia’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) could be fully depleted within the next year if current oil prices persist.
Experts at the major state-owned lender Gazprombank have warned the Kremlin that the NWF is being “zeroed out” at a record pace, with funds likely to run out within a year.
The notice appeared on the Telegram channel of Gazprombank’s Center for Economic Forecasting.
At the start of the year, the fund held about 4.1 trillion rubles in foreign currency and gold on accounts at the Bank of Russia. According to the analysis, the stock of liquid NWF assets will be exhausted within a year—or even sooner.
The Russian government has been using these resources to cover the budget deficit caused by falling oil and gas revenues. The drawdown pace is directly tied to oil prices.
Economists estimate that with oil at around $40 a barrel, the fund’s remaining assets would last a little over a year. If prices slip to the $30–35 range, the NWF’s liquid assets risk being wiped out by the end of the current year. Even under a more favorable scenario with oil at $50, the accumulated funds would cover roughly two and a half years.
In December, Russia’s Urals crude averaged $39, and by late January its price had fallen to $36–38 per barrel.
Before the full-scale war against Ukraine, the NWF held about $113 billion in liquid assets, equal to 6.5% of Russia’s GDP. By early 2026, that figure had shrunk two and a half times to roughly $52 billion, or 1.9% of GDP. The war is effectively “zeroing out” the Kremlin’s financial cushion.
Russia’s NWF was created in 2008 as a reserve mechanism to support the pension system and smooth shocks from swings in oil and gas prices. It was funded by windfall revenues from energy exports and was originally presented as a guarantee of the country’s long-term financial stability.
After the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the NWF became a key source for covering the budget shortfall stemming from sanctions and surging military spending. A significant portion of the reserves was channeled into financing the war, including weapons production, maintaining the army, and supporting occupation structures.
