One of the fund's main responsibilities is to support the Russian pension system, and since the closure of the Reserve Fund also funds budget deficits.
Russians might not be too happy if their pension gets slashed or stops showing up.
A few years back, Russia tried effectively reducing what the pension paid out via increasing the retirement age.
An intention to hike the national retirement age and the more so a final decision to launch the reform have drastically downed the rating of the president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev in Russia. In July 2018, just 49% would vote for Putin if the presidential elections were held in that moment; during the elections in March, he got 76.7%.[6][7]