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Bank funding costs refuse to follow the key rate down, households keep pulling money into cash, and exchange sales of fuel and grain shipments both fell sharply in July.
The Bank of Russia cut its key rate by 0.25 percentage points to 14% on 24 July, the tenth consecutive reduction, yet retail deposit rates moved the other way. On the Moscow Exchange platform Finuslugi, the average maximum one-year rate at the ten largest deposit-taking banks rose from 12.03% to 12.2% between 24 and 31 July; six-month rates rose from 12.76% to 13.06% since 26 June. The central bank's own monitoring shows the average maximum rate climbing from 12.76% to 12.85% over July, the first monthly increase since early December 2025.
VTB raised its twelve-month rate by 1.9 points to 13% and PSB lifted rates on terms up to one year by 0.5 points to 13.8–14.2%. Bankers quoted by Forbes attribute the move to competition for deposits, the drain of funds into cash and elevated inflation expectations. For foreign companies financing Russian operations locally, the signal is that borrowing costs will lag the policy rate.
Source: Forbes.ru, 4 Aug 2026
Currency in circulation grew by 643.4bn rubles (about $8.0bn) in July, 43.1% more than June's 449.7bn rubles, according to Bank of Russia data. Between February and July the cumulative increase reached 2,546.9bn rubles, a monthly average of 424.5bn. Since February 2022 only December 2025 (719.2bn) and September 2022 (865.8bn) saw larger single-month increases.
The central bank links the shift to mobile internet outages, which push households and businesses to hold payment buffers, and to adaptation to tax changes. Sberbank deputy chairman and CFO Taras Skvortsov expects 3.8 trillion rubles (roughly $47bn) to move into cash in 2026 and sees no sign of the trend stopping, calling it a material driver of the banking sector's liquidity deficit.
Source: Interfax, 3 Aug 2026
Petroleum product sales on the St Petersburg exchange fell 35.6% year on year in July to 2.17mn tonnes, while turnover dropped only 11.5% to almost 173bn rubles (about $2.2bn) — the gap points to sharply higher prices. Gasoline volumes fell 51.8% to 452,000 tonnes, with AI-95 down 69.1% and AI-92 down 39.6%; diesel fell 37.2% and jet fuel 80.5%.
Over the first seven months sales were down 11.2% to 19.15mn tonnes, with turnover almost flat at 1.185 trillion rubles. Authorities temporarily lowered the mandatory exchange-sale quota for gasoline from July to end-September, which explains part of the drop but also confirms that physical supply is tight.
Source: Interfax, 3 Aug 2026
Russia shipped 1.8mn tonnes of wheat in July, 17.7% less than the nearly 2.2mn tonnes a year earlier, according to Russian Grain Union monitoring. Corn shipments fell to 146,300 tonnes from 521,400 and barley to 101,400 tonnes from 567,000; total exports of the main grains dropped 37.6% to 2.026mn tonnes.
Elena Tyurina, head of the union's analytical department, names the situation in the Azov–Black Sea region as the main cause: shipments in the last ten days of July fell 61.3% year on year to 685,000 tonnes. Wheat reached 23 countries against 27 a year ago. Egypt remained the largest buyer at 344,000 tonnes, down 31.7%, while Kenya rose about 1.8-fold to 194,500 tonnes and Sudan gained 31% to 177,000 tonnes.
Source: Interfax, 3 Aug 2026
The aggregate loss of Russian coal producers narrowed 9.6% to 123.1bn rubles (about $1.5bn) in January–May, from 136.2bn a year earlier, Rosstat data show; the share of loss-making enterprises edged down to 65.7% from 66.1%. The full-year 2025 loss was 408bn rubles, and Deputy Energy Minister Dmitry Islamov forecast in March that 2026 could reach 576bn.
Export volumes rose 8.1% to 107.13mn tonnes in the first half, even as hard coal output fell 2.8% to 162mn tonnes. Prices were lifted by gas supply disruption in the Gulf: World Bank data put Australian Newcastle 6000 at an average $138.5 per tonne in June, 17% above February's $118.4, but by 31 July the price had fallen 12% from its 12 June peak of $151.6 to $134. Analysts quoted by Forbes expect the strong ruble and normalising Asian prices to push losses back up in the second half.
Source: Forbes.ru, 3 Aug 2026