It is right for Russia to use oil revenues to fund two big rail infrastructure projects even though the investments will not be commercially profitable, the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin said in an interview published on Monday. The government recently faced criticism that it was taking risks with reserves that had been earmarked to support the country’s pension system, after it lifted a cap on infrastructure investment by the $87 billion National Wealth Fund, one of two sovereign funds that accumulate oil tax revenues. “These are projects which will not make commercial returns. No private investor would lend to such projects for 15 years, let alone 30,” Yakunin said in the Vedomosti daily, referring to the 150 billion rouble ($4.35 billion) modernisation of the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian mainlines. Yakunin, however, said it was correct for the state to provide subsidies to finance such non-commercial projects. “If in its plans for social and economic development it considers it necessary to develop regions, to develop the economy and infrastructure, then the state must also anticipate the assignations that will be directed towards these goals,” he told Vedomosti. The Russian railways head also argued that Russian Railways required government subsidies to pay for loss-making services such as suburban railways, saying that Germany’s Deutsche Bahn received 8 billion euros ($10.9 billion) of state subsidies last year. Yakunin fiercely criticised a governmental decision to freeze railway tariffs this year, saying that along with other factors it would lead Russian Railways to make an 80 billion rouble loss in 2014. “This is purely monetarist neo-liberal policy,” he said of the tariff freeze. “It doesn’t give anything for the development of the economy and very seriously affects the economics of railway transport.”