"Shadow Treasury" as Institute of Public Finances for the Political Elite

The paper considers a new research area in the shadow economy – shadow finance of the state. The relevance of this topic for Russia is due to the accelerated immersion of state activity into the shadow zone under the pressure of sanctions from foreign countries and the emergence of an additional and significant financial burden to overcome them, as well as the need for Russia to implement counter-measures in the outside world. The subject of the study is the shadow financial assets of the state. The purpose of the study was to confirm the existence of a "shadow caste" of the Russian state based on indirect signs and well-known events and facts. For Russia, an analytical review of the most notable internal and external sources of filling the "shadow treasury" of the state has been conducted. The problem of its dependence on revenues from the illegal domestic sector of the economy (drug trafficking, uncontrolled migration) is posed, which creates risks to public safety that exceed economic viability. It is shown that in 2023 the risks reached their limits, when the mutiny of the Wagner PMC units, being a conflict tool for filling the "shadow treasury", almost brought down the Russian state. Using the example of individual foreign countries that have been under international and American sanctions for a long time, the limiting cases of using the capabilities of the "shadow treasury" for survival and development are considered. The results of the work can be useful in analyzing the ongoing processes in the internal socio-economic space, as well as the actions of the Russian state in the outside world. Future research in the field of the "shadow treasury" of the state may be related to the search for internal and external sources of its replenishment, an assessment of the optimality of selected tactics from the point of view of "economic benefits – internal security", the impact on the socio-economic development of the country, as well as the identification and comprehensive analysis of this institution in large foreign countries., includes USA, China, India.