Russia cut financing of the Crimea by 1.5 billion rubles
On March 22nd, the Russian Parliament in the annexed Crimea approved amendments to the budget for 2017 which will reduce the revenues and expenditures of the peninsula’s budget by 1.55 billion rubles (27 million USD). The budget bill was published on the official website of the Crimean Parliament.
As reported by Kryminform, the Minister of Finance of the peninsula, Irina Kiviko, said during a committee meeting that "this amount is approved, less the receipts under the federal target program."
"There is a proposition to reduce the total amount of revenues and the total amount of expenditures in the amount of 1,545,588,000 rubles (27 million USD)." We have already signed an agreement on the federal budget, and this amount is approved less the receipts under the federal target program," she said.
Previously, Kiviko explained that expenditures will be reduced by this amount under the federal target program on the development of the Crimea and Sevastopol until 2020. At the end of December 2016, a budget for 2017 was adopted in the annexed Crimea. At that time, the government reported a "record" future revenue growth. According to the adopted document, the revenue part of the treasury of the peninsula will be almost 132 billion rubles (2.29 billion USD), and the expenditure part, almost 135 billion rubles (2.3 billion USD).
The Crimea was annexed by Russia in March 2014. This was preceded by an invasion of Russian troops into the peninsula and a referendum in the presence of armed people. Kyiv and many western countries do not recognize the referendum as legitimate, and as a result sanctions were imposed on Russia. Initially, the restrictions were directed against the individuals and legal entities, but later the sanctions were expanded and they affected entire sectors of the Russian economy.