What Kommersant, RBC, Vedomosti, Interfax and Forbes Russia report — selected and summarized in English every morning, for readers who don't read Russian. Analysis-grade sourcing, no wire rehash. Data context in the Russia Terminal. Regional wires: Central Asia · Caucasus.
Consumer spending is holding up as industrial activity stirs, Russia-China trade keeps accelerating, and retail money is flowing back into the Moscow Exchange after a four-year index low.
Incoming payments to consumer-facing sectors rose 1.5% in July against the Q2 average while payments across the economy fell 3.4%, according to the Central Bank's financial-flows monitoring; year-over-year, consumer-sector payments grew 5.6% against a 1.1% decline economy-wide. SberIndex and Alfa-Bank estimate real household spending up 5.9% and 6.5% year-over-year, led by non-food goods at 9.1%. Both the CBR and the banks expect private demand to cool in the second half — SberIndex weekly spending growth already slowed to 0.2% in late July from 2%.
Source: Kommersant, 10 Aug 2026
Chinese customs data show bilateral trade grew 26.3% in the first seven months of 2026, after a 6.7% decline in the same period of 2025. China's exports to Russia rose 29.5% to $72.84 billion, imports from Russia grew 23.7% to $86.4 billion, leaving Russia a surplus of $13.56 billion — up 1.7% year-over-year. The acceleration has been consistent through 2026: from 12% growth in January–February to 25.6% by mid-year.
Source: Vedomosti, 10 Aug 2026
Private investors put 25.1 billion rubles (ca. $305 million) into equities in July, 1.9 times more than a year earlier, out of 142.9 billion rubles (ca. $1.7 billion) invested in securities overall, the exchange reported; bonds took 100.9 billion rubles. Money-market funds drew a net 33.7 billion rubles — the highest monthly inflow this year and 3.5 times the H1 average. The buying follows a four-year low: the MOEX index fell below 1,900 points on 20 July after 19 weeks of decline, then recovered to around 2,293 by 10 August.
Source: Forbes.ru, 10 Aug 2026
The ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5 has handled almost $140 billion in turnover since its launch in early 2025, PSB chairman Petr Fradkov said in an interview with RBC, calling it the largest non-dollar stablecoin. The token was issued by A7, a PSB-founded cross-border payments platform built in response to the financial sanctions imposed in 2022. The figure, if accurate, indicates the scale sanctions-resistant settlement infrastructure has reached — a metric foreign banks and compliance teams track closely.
Source: Forbes.ru, 9 Aug 2026
Business associations have proposed that small and medium-sized companies be allowed to deduct the cost of Russian AI software from profit tax or simplified-regime tax, with a base allowance of 200,000 rubles (ca. $2,400) per year rising to 500,000 rubles for firms that document productivity gains, Kommersant reported citing two sources. A parallel subsidy would compensate developers for discounts of up to 100% of the product price in year one, capped at 200,000 rubles and declining to 50% and 25% over three years. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko's office confirmed the discussions but called concrete initiatives premature; the measures could enter the implementing regulations of the recently adopted AI law.
Source: Forbes.ru, 10 Aug 2026