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.
Grain shipments through the Azov-Black Sea ports collapsed to a ten-year low, small-business activity slipped further below the expansion line, and the government took a golden share in Sheremetyevo ahead of a privatisation closed to foreign buyers.
Russia shipped about 1.4 million tonnes of grain between 1 and 20 August, 2.5 times less than in the same period of 2025, according to Russian Grain Union monitoring reported by Interfax; wheat fell 2.6-fold to just over 1 million tonnes, barley 2.9-fold to 168,000 tonnes and maize 1.7-fold to 98,000 tonnes. Elena Tyurina, head of the union's analytical department, attributed the decline to logistics rather than supply, citing disrupted navigation and partial damage to port infrastructure in the Azov-Black Sea basin, and said August could close at 1.8 to 1.9 million tonnes of grain, the weakest month in ten years. The buyer list narrowed sharply in the second ten-day period, to eight destinations from 28 a year earlier, with Bangladesh the largest at 110,000 tonnes and Egypt down almost eightfold to 62,000 tonnes; traders exposed to Russian-origin wheat should expect the export potential of a good harvest to stay stranded onshore while port capacity is repaired.
Source: Interfax, 21 Aug 2026
The RSBI index of small and medium-sized business activity, compiled by PSB, Opora Rossii and Magram Market Research, fell to 49.4 points in July from 49.6 in June, keeping the sector below the 50-point line that separates growth from contraction. The sales component dropped 1.9 points to 39.7, its lowest reading since January 2023, with 37% of respondents expecting sales to deteriorate against 34% in June and half reporting an outright fall in revenue; hiring intentions fell to 19% of firms, the weakest in six months, while one company in four cut headcount. Credit was the only component to rise, up 3.6 points to 59.7, as the share of firms needing loans reached 41% and approval rates climbed to 69% from 56% — PSB senior vice-president Kirill Tikhonov reads this as borrowing to sustain current operations rather than to expand, a distinction that matters for anyone underwriting Russian SME counterparties.
Source: Kommersant, 21 Aug 2026
PhosAgro reported second-quarter revenue of 149.9 billion roubles (about 1.8 billion dollars), up 8% year-on-year, while net income fell by a factor of 1.5 to 18.4 billion roubles (about 220 million dollars) and operating profit dropped 40% to 21.7 billion roubles. Cost of sales rose 29%: spending on sulphur and sulphuric acid doubled against the second quarter of 2025 and now accounts for 24% of total production cost, potassium chloride costs rose 34% and personnel costs almost a quarter. First-half net income was down fourfold to 18.7 billion roubles on revenue 6% lower at 281.4 billion roubles, with total debt at 326.1 billion roubles (about 3.9 billion dollars) — for European fertiliser buyers, the input-cost squeeze at one of the world's largest phosphate producers argues against expecting Russian price relief in the next contracting round.
Source: Interfax, 22 Aug 2026
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order on 18 August applying the state's special right, the so-called golden share, to the management of Sheremetyevo International Airport, implementing a presidential decree of 6 August that removed the airport from the list of strategic enterprises and cleared the state stake for privatisation. The decree obliges the government to attach conditions to any disposal of shares: preservation of the airport's core activity, modernisation of its capacity, and a ban on sale to foreign persons or to legal entities under their direct or indirect control. Sheremetyevo Holding LLC controls 66.06% of the airport and is wholly owned by TPS Avia Holding LTD, redomiciled from Cyprus to the Kaliningrad special administrative district at the end of 2022 with undisclosed founders, while Rosimushchestvo holds 30.46%, Aeroflot 2.43% and management 1.05% — the structure signals that Russian infrastructure privatisations are being reopened to domestic capital only.
Source: Interfax, 21 Aug 2026
China imported nearly 1.1 billion dollars of Russian rapeseed oil in January-July 2026 against 788.2 million dollars a year earlier, a 1.4-fold increase, according to figures from China's General Administration of Customs cited by Interfax; sunflower oil followed the same path, rising 1.4-fold to 287.97 million dollars from 202.3 million. Russia is the leading supplier of both products to China, ahead of the United Arab Emirates at 152.7 million dollars and Belarus at 123 million in rapeseed oil, and ahead of Kazakhstan at 136.9 million in sunflower oil. July was weaker than the trend, at 71.5 million dollars against 103.2 million in July 2025, but the state Agroexport centre still projects China will displace India as the main destination for Russian vegetable oil in the 2025/26 season, at roughly 1.85 million tonnes against 1.67 million a season earlier.
Source: Interfax, 21 Aug 2026