The russian Ministry of Finance aims to make the heads of the occupation administrations in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblast personally responsible for the budget deficit, according to a government resolution draft cited by Kommersant.
The ministry stated that the leaders of the so-called "new regions of russia" must take on specific budgetary commitments. In particular, collaborators will be required to work towards reducing the gap between revenues and expenditures. Pushilin, Pasechnik, Saldo, and Balitsky will have to sign an agreement on the targeted use of federal funds for social programs, refrain from increasing the number of public servants, and avoid raising their salaries above inflation. Additionally, the heads of the occupation administrations commit to increasing revenue collection, thereby reducing the gap between federal budget subsidies and their own revenues.
If they refuse to sign the agreement by December 18, the occupied territories of Ukraine will be excluded from the federal budget allocation, and they will not receive federal funds. The reason for tightening the requirements is the high proportion of federal subsidies in their budgets.
As previously reported, the revenue portions of the budgets of the so-called "new territories of russia" consist of 70-90% of so-called gratuitous transfers from the russian budget.