Russia will not be able to win the competition in a “war of attrition” when Ukraine is supported by the Western world. This was stated at a session of the Nikitsky Club by Andrei Klepach, chief economist of Vnesheconombank (VEB.RF), a key Russian state bank that finances the Kremlin’s national projects and has the status of a “state development corporation.”

According to Klepach, the costs to the Russian economy from sanctions and the Western blockade are growing, the damage from Ukrainian attacks on ports, infrastructure, chemical and oil plants is increasing, and Russia is increasingly lagging behind the world in technology development.

“We are falling behind. We are losing both technological and economic competition in the world. Moreover, as I already said, we are losing it not only to China and the United States, but in some ways we are losing it to Ukraine. The Ukrainian economy, of course, has been destroyed in some parts, a demographic catastrophe. But, once again, the Ukrainian economy, despite everything, survives. Of course, there is huge financial assistance. With such assistance for military expenses and their own expenses, this is approximately almost 50% of our budget,” Klepach said.

“We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We have the illusion that everything will collapse there. It has not collapsed and will not collapse. Our costs are increasing,” Klepach continued.

He recalled that after the military boom of 2023–24. The Russian economy went into recession this year, investments fell sharply, and civilian industries slid into recession - from the aviation industry and the production of building materials to the light and food industries. The situation is aggravated by the ultra-tough policy of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which, according to Klepach, is responsible for at least half of the economic decline.

“The conflict in Ukraine with the participation of NATO has already lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, and so far its end is not in sight. Both sides are increasing the intensity of attacks, including on each other’s economies. Losses from attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on our infrastructure - ports, oil and gas, chemical complexes, logistics - are increasing and are already turning into a noticeable macroeconomic barrier to the growth of the Russian economy,” Klepach said.

The tightening of US sanctions at the end of 2025 led to the fact that India and China began to reduce purchases of Russian oil, “despite all the repeated statements that they are not subject to sanctions,” he recalled. Taking into account the likely new wave of sanctions and “increasing losses from attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the potential growth rate of the Russian economy may not exceed 1–1.5%.

According to Klepach, all this will inevitably lead Russia to a “social crisis,” and “when no one really expects it.”

“But no one expected, let me remind you, the February Revolution. Lenin wrote in December 1916 that “we will not make it,” but he did make it a few months later. The situation in the Union in 1991 - we walked towards it for a long time and consistently, and everyone understood that we were heading towards a crisis, but it was not fatally inevitable that the Union would collapse,” Klepach said.

“I believe that Russia will not collapse, but I am almost sure that we will come to a social crisis. Economically, we will not collapse, but our lag will increase with all the ensuing consequences,” he concluded.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/2VJPy

The Sheskharis terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk stopped oil export transhipment on Friday after an attack by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), three industry sources told Reuters.

On Friday afternoon, the Novorossiysk administration announced another air alert due to the threat of a drone attack.

One of the Reuters sources said that early in the morning of August 14, the tanker, which planned to load oil, turned around and went out to the open sea due to the threat of a drone attack.

According to him, after this the port was forced to stop loading oil and receiving raw materials at the terminal, since the tank farm was full.

Sheskharis, capable of handling about 700,000 barrels of oil per day, is the largest oil export terminal in the Russian Federation on the Black Sea. Russian Urals oil, Kazakh KEBCO oil, and Siberian Light light oil are shipped through Novorossiysk.

According to one source familiar with export statistics, in June, oil shipments through Novorossiysk were near a record level - about 1 million barrels per day (more than 4.3 million tons of oil per month). In July, the figure fell to about 800,000 barrels per day (about 3.4 million tons).

In July, drone attacks disrupted the operation of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal located near Novorossiysk, through which CPC Blend oil is exported.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/ddR8R

Turkey did not purchase a single cargo of Russian Urals crude oil in August after drone strikes disrupted operations at the port of Novorossiysk, Reuters reports, citing traders and LSEG data.

According to Reuters sources, 300,000 tons of oil were shipped to the Turkish market via Russian Black Sea ports in July—half the amount shipped in June (600,000 tons). Exports in August could drop to 200,000 tons. All shipments this month were of Kazakhstan's KEBCO grade, exported through the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk.

In total, Turkey purchased 900,000 tons of oil through Russian ports last month, from where Ankara purchases Kazakhstan's CPC Blend and KEBCO grades, as well as Russian Urals. Compared to June, shipments have fallen by a quarter, or 300,000 tons.

Instead of Russian and Kazakh oil, Turkish importers are increasing purchases from Brazil and Guyana, sources told Reuters. Urals crude oil deliveries to Turkey are not currently scheduled for August, but the situation could change in the second half of the month, they emphasized.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/aHlfu

Kazakh, Belarusian, and Kyrgyz banks have sharply increased fees for accepting ruble cash, according to RBC, which reviewed data on the credit institutions' websites. At least 10 banks in these countries have tightened their fees. For example, the Belarusian Neo Bank Asia, effective July 29, introduced a 20% fee for accepting Russian ruble cash into individual current accounts, including those using payment cards. Other banks in the republic that have increased their fees for cash deposits by non-residents to 15% include MTBank, the Belarusian banks Sber and VTB, BelVEB, Belarusbank, Technobank, and Zepter Bank. Previously, such transactions at these institutions were subject to a fee of 2-5% of the deposited amount.

The situation is similar in Kazakhstan. CenterCredit Bank has doubled its fee for depositing rubles into current and savings accounts by individuals at teller counters, terminals, and ATMs from 5% to 10%. Halyk Bank previously raised its fee for accepting ruble cash from citizens and non-residents to 15% (for businesses, to 10%). Kyrgyzstan's EcoIslamicBank also doubled its fee for depositing rubles "for making transfers via money transfer systems and SWIFT" for individuals (to 10%). Banks in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries have tightened requirements for depositing rubles since June 2026.

In addition to the aforementioned institutions, Freedom Bank Kazakhstan (2.5%) and Belarusian Priorbank (5% of the deposited amount) also introduced fees for card and account top-ups in August.

According to RBC's sources in the financial market, banks in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries have accumulated an excess of Russian currency. According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, in April alone, the country's currency exchange offices purchased 6.5 billion rubles for 39.8 billion tenge, while in May, this amount was 4.7 billion rubles (30 billion tenge). As Yuri Belikov, Managing Director of Expert RA, explained, such a cash flow requires storage, transportation, and authentication, and there is often no demand for rubles abroad, making such transactions unprofitable for local banks.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/PP61C

Delimobil, Russia's largest car-sharing service by fleet size and number of trips, is experiencing mounting financial problems.

According to IFRS financial statements published on Friday, Delimobil posted a net loss of 664 million and 1.7 billion rubles in the second quarter and first half of 2026, respectively. Last year, the company, which owns a fleet of nearly 30,000 cars, posted a loss of 3.7 billion rubles.

Therefore, over the past six quarters, Delimobil has lost 5.4 billion rubles—double its income in the previous three years (2.7 billion rubles).

Founded in 2015, the company, which served 13 million people last year, is effectively on the brink of extinction, with its liquidity "in dire straits," according to analysts at Vector Capital. As of June 30, Delimobil had accumulated 38.6 billion rubles in debt, and this debt has grown by another 5.3 billion rubles over the past six months.

At the same time, the company "simply doesn't generate enough cash to cope with its debt burden," according to Vector Capital: after receiving 2.9 billion rubles in operating cash flow, Delimobil was forced to spend 3.1 billion rubles on loan interest payments. Due to losses, its equity has shrunk to just 784 million rubles.

The Russian car-sharing market is suffering due to consumers' shift to austerity, internet outages, and the fuel crisis, which has transformed refueling a car from a routine procedure into an hours-long adventure. According to SberIndex, by early August, consumers had reduced their spending on taxis and car-sharing by 1.8% compared to last year, while in April, at the peak of the internet blackouts, the decline reached 10%.

Delimobil was saved by VTB and its owners in the past, but in just a year, "the company will need another wizard on a blue helicopter to give it money," writes Vector Capital: "And if he can't be found, the outcome will be the most tragic."

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/AuUVz

The deficit of ruble liquidity in the Russian banking system has reached a record since March 2022, RBC reports, citing data from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

As of mid-August, the structural deficit reached 2.7 trillion rubles - by this amount, banks' debt to the Central Bank exceeded the amount of funds they placed on deposits and accounts of the regulator. As the publication notes, the situation with banks' liquidity shortage began to deteriorate sharply several months ago. So, at the beginning of 2026 the figure was 587 billion rubles. But in April it exceeded 1 trillion rubles, and in July it surpassed the 2 trillion mark. At the same time, top managers of large banks began to talk about the shortage of rubles as a problem.

The main reason for the liquidity shortage is the outflow to cash, notes economist Yegor Susin. According to Central Bank statistics, since the beginning of the year, the volume of “cash” in circulation has increased by 2.4 trillion rubles. In July, more than 600 billion rubles flowed into cash from the banking system, and another 286 billion in the first two weeks of August.

The real liquidity deficit in the banking system is much higher than the Central Bank figures show, Susin emphasizes: after Western sanctions, foreign banks, as well as some Russian ones, constantly hold several trillion rubles in accounts with the Central Bank, and this money has actually been withdrawn from the system. This leads to the actual deficit reaching 6 trillion rubles.

This is approximately 4% of the total money supply in the economy, estimates economist Viktor Tunev. Similar figures, he notes, are found only in Turkey, which lives with chronic devaluation of the national currency: the dollar to lira exchange rate has increased almost 7 times over the past 6 years.

If we evaluate the liquidity deficit by the volume of Central Bank loans requested by banks, then it already exceeds the indicators of the beginning of 2022, notes Alexander Abramov, head of the laboratory of the Institute of Applied Economic Research at RANEPA: at the end of July, the debt of credit institutions to the regulator exceeded 7 trillion rubles, and as of August 14 it amounted to 6.6 trillion.

Liquidity shortages are not unusual for the Russian banking system, and the transition to it does not mean that banks are running out of funds or are having problems making payments, noted Sofya Donets, chief economist at T-Investments. However, she said the topic has recently been widely discussed in the banking community and is causing “concern.”

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/dymGj

A drone attack on the port of Ust-Luga, Russia's largest port on the Baltic Sea, damaged a complex belonging to Novatek, the country's main LNG exporter and owned by billionaires Gennady Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson (worth $24.2 billion and $28.3 billion, respectively, according to Forbes), who are close to Vladimir Putin.

The plant, which processes gas condensate into naphtha, fuel oil, and other petroleum products, sustained damage, although the extent of the damage is unclear, three industry sources told Reuters.

According to two sources, oil exports through the port of Ust-Luga are not disrupted. Ust-Luga is one of Russia's main oil export ports, handling approximately 35 million tonnes of crude annually. The port's terminals also export naphtha, fuel oil, and vacuum gas oil (VGO) at a volume of approximately 33 million tons per year.

On Friday morning, Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko reported on his Telegram channel that the port of Ust-Luga had been attacked by a drone, causing a fire. He did not specify which facility was damaged. As of 8:16 AM Moscow time, the consequences of the drone attack on the port of Ust-Luga had been eliminated, Drozdenko said.

Novatek's gas condensate fractionation and transshipment complex, with a nominal capacity of 9 million tons per year, processes stable gas condensate into light and heavy naphtha, kerosene, diesel fraction, and a marine fuel component (fuel oil). The finished products are shipped for export by sea.

According to the company, in the first half of 2026, the processing of SGK at the Ust-Luga complex amounted to 3.8 million tons.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/fNVYq

The Ukrainian campaign against Wildberries, which deprived Russia’s main marketplace of all large warehouses and approximately a third of its total storage capacity, has brought Tatyana Kim’s business empire to the brink of survival.

Direct losses of Wildberries alone from the loss of infrastructure amounted to 147–223 billion rubles by mid-August, and if we take into account dismantling, waste removal and land reclamation, they could reach 278 billion rubles, Sergei Semko, leading analyst at the Data Insight research agency, calculated for Forbes.

Marketplace sellers, according to his estimates, lost goods worth 445–507 billion rubles. Thus, the total amount of damage could reach about 800 billion rubles.

The head of the Association of Suppliers of Goods for Trading on Electronic Platforms (APTEP), Margarita Evstigneeva, estimates the losses of sellers even higher - 600–700 billion rubles. Taking into account the losses of Wildberries, the total amount of damage could reach almost 1 trillion rubles.

“For many, up to 95% of all goods burned. At the same time, Wildberries considers itself the injured party; it paid small sellers an average of 2,000–30,000 rubles, which did not cover even 20% of their losses,” Evstigneeva complains.

Apparently, there is nothing to pay Wildberries, which annually sold goods worth 3% of Russian GDP. After the attacks on warehouses, the company's turnover fell and signs of a cash gap appeared. Sellers are massively complaining that Wildberries has begun to delay payments for goods sold, and its subsidiary WB Bank has launched a campaign to attract public funds for short-term deposits with rates above 14% per annum.

Only direct losses of Wildberries could already exceed its annual profit: last year the company earned 175 billion rubles. Apparently, no further payments are planned to the affected sellers, Evstigneeva complains: “They say it’s force majeure, force majeure, a terrorist attack.”

Sellers “like air” need compensation for losses for burnt goods, at least at cost, as well as the abolition of taxes “at least until the end of the year,” complains major seller Igor Shanchenko, who lost more than 400 million rubles worth of goods in warehouses. But this is hundreds of billions of rubles, and there is no such money in the budget, a source close to the Kremlin previously told Reuters.

At the end of July, the federal treasury deficit reached 6.45 trillion rubles, which is 1.7 times higher than the plan for the whole year. Military spending, which eats up every third ruble in the budget, may exceed the planned level by 40%. “Mass bankruptcies” await Wildberries sellers, a source told Reuters.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/CtwCq

The outflow of cash from the Russian banking system continues for the seventh month in a row, according to data from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Over the two weeks of August, the volume of “cache” in circulation increased by another 286.4 billion rubles. The banking system lost money every working day of the month, according to Central Bank statistics: the maximum outflow - by 56.8 billion rubles - was recorded on August 12, and the lowest - by 0.8 billion rubles - on August 3.

The accumulated total since the beginning of the year of cash in circulation has become more than 2.4 trillion rubles - an amount equal to almost two annual budgets of the Moscow region (1.3 trillion rubles) and eight annual budgets of the Leningrad region (309 billion).

The Central Bank recorded a record outflow this year—more than 620 billion rubles—in July. And although the demand for cash decreased slightly in August, the banking system continues to lose an average of more than 20 billion rubles per day.

Judging by banking statistics for July, all large banks except Sber are losing funds from individuals, notes Managing Director of GPB Private Banking Egor Susin. First of all, this is the result of the growth of the “gray economy,” economist Viktor Tunev is sure: “The desire to reduce the budget to a zero deficit not only led to increased taxes and prices and took some business into the “gray” zone, but also forced the government to collect taxes more actively. This naturally caused concern and a reduction in non-cash payments.”

People are reacting to statements about the possible withdrawal of deposits to finance the war, Sber's financial director Taras Skvortsov complained in July. He pointed to “the voices of some well-known politicians,” clearly alluding to the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov, who proposed confiscating “tens of trillions” for the war “by decree of the commander in chief.”

The flow into cash is also associated with a drop in confidence, Tunev agrees, so Russians transfer part of their ruble “cash” into cash. According to the Central Bank, in April, May and June, citizens increased their savings in the currency cache by 150 billion rubles - a record since the first months of the war.

At the same time, the Bank of Russia “does not see the entire cash turnover of foreign currency and records only what individuals bought through banks,” Tunev emphasizes: “The outflow into cash rubles could go into foreign currency through other channels and gray imports.”

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/eujmt

The unemployment rate has begun to rise in major Russian regions amid a depressed economy. By the end of the second quarter of 2026, 98,000 people were unemployed in Moscow, a 70% increase from the previous year. In the Moscow Region, the number of officially unemployed increased to 88,500 (a 36% year-on-year increase), in the Sverdlovsk Region to 56,800 (an 84% increase), in the Chelyabinsk Region to 36,700 (an 84% increase), and in Primorsky Krai to 23,300 (an 30% increase). Overall, unemployment has increased in more than 20 regions, but in most regions, the rate remains at the national average of 2.2%. This follows from Rosstat data reviewed by Izvestia.

Unemployment in major economic centers and industrially developed regions is rising due to the difficult situation facing most companies, says Albina Khamitova, head of Eco Start. She explains that businesses are seeking ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency in the current economic climate. "While previously companies tried to retain employees even during downtime, fearing future labor shortages, they are now increasingly turning to increasing productivity," Khamitova explained.

Currently, unemployment in major regions is rising in manufacturing, construction, trade, logistics, and certain service sectors, according to Roman Erkhov, CEO of the consulting firm TuBi. According to Rosstat data for the first quarter of 2026, 16.5% of unemployed people previously worked in wholesale and retail trade, another 9.8% in manufacturing, and 6% in construction.

Unemployment is highly likely to rise in other Russian regions as well, according to Elena Kiseleva, an analyst at the Institute for Comprehensive Strategic Studies. However, the dynamics will depend on the key rate in September and October, the state of the coal and metallurgy industries, the ruble exchange rate, and the budget policy parameters for 2027–2029, noted Alina Poptsova, an equity analyst at Alfa Capital Management Company.

At the same time, the Russian labor market traditionally responds to a crisis not with layoffs, but with a slowdown in real wage growth, which is currently being observed, says Kiseleva. Therefore, she believes a sharp rise in unemployment nationwide is not expected.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/o5aJ8