Russia has trebled its rouble bond targets for July

It’s possible I’m behind the music on this one, but Slog contacts this afternoon are expressing concern about the sheer size and short-term nature of debt bonds the Russian Federation is issuing at the moment.

I’ve checked on the claims and they so far seem to be kosher. Going forward to 2015, Russia has suddenly and massively upped its debt. From the nby mother-site last year, I did post on the enormous 2009 first half contraction in economic output from the RF – following which the revolving crises elsewhere took my eye off the ball.

The dates speak for themselves: it is all very short-term debt:

11 billion roubles last week, due Autumn 2012
30 billion roubles being issued tomorrow, due 2015
15 billion roubles due 2013 on the same day

I note from the westernised (aka sanitised) Russian sites that the Moscow line seems to be ‘we offered a premium because of low demand in the market’, which is a classic Gordon Brown of a statement, in that the timing and speed is what’s at issue, not the premium yield.

Short term is of course all Russia can get after the grisly 1999 demise. And these amounts are peanuts compared to the more than a trillion rouble bonds in circulation. But my feedback (which contains phrases like ‘huge increase’ and ‘complete policy change’) give the lie to Putin’s recent bland ‘all normal with RF debt at 5%’ balm.

They have a point: the July total of bond launches notches up a whopping 110 billion roubles….three times the borrowing target for June.

This may be one to watch. Sorry, yet another one to watch.