Russia is lining up seven large state companies — including Aeroflot, Alrosa, the diamond miner, and Rosneft — for potential privatisation as the Kremlin considers drastic options to replace dwindling oil revenues.
The intensified debate over the first such comprehensive push in years comes as the slide in crude prices is expected to drive Russia into a second year of recession and after it has ripped a gaping hole in its budget.
Moscow has sold small state company stakes over the years but progress has slowed since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012. Memories of the privatisation wave with which Russia’s liberal economic policymakers tried to force a transition from the Soviet economy in the 1990s remain traumatic as it vastly enriched a small number of people, creating the country’s oligarch class.