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.
Official data pointed in two directions: the government put first-half GDP near 102 trillion rubles, while Rosstat cut its industrial growth estimate for the same period to zero, and the ruble slipped past 100 to the euro as seaborne oil exports fell.
Nominal GDP rose 0.6% year on year in the first half of 2026 and reached almost 102 trillion rubles (about $1.19 trillion), Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told a government meeting. Budget revenues exceeded 18.6 trillion rubles (about $216 billion), above the earlier forecast, with non-oil-and-gas receipts making up more than 80% of the total, according to Mishustin. For foreign suppliers and investors the revenue mix is the signal: fiscal capacity now rests mainly on non-resource sectors rather than on hydrocarbon prices.
Source: Kommersant, 27 Aug 2026
Industrial output rose 0.1% year on year in January–July, Rosstat reported, after the agency cut its first-half estimate from 0.4% to zero and moved its base year from 2018 to 2023. July output was 0.4% above a year earlier and just 0.1% above June after seasonal adjustment; the 2025 figure was revised from 1.3% to 1.1% for industry and from 3.6% to 3.1% for manufacturing. Growth remains concentrated in defence-linked lines — other transport equipment up 22.9% and fabricated metal products up 10.9% over seven months — while refining fell 9.2%, machinery and equipment 4.1% and chemicals 2.7%, leaving the Economy Ministry's May forecast of 0.6% industrial growth for 2026 dependent on a sharp acceleration.
Source: Kommersant, 27 Aug 2026
The euro passed 100 rubles on the over-the-counter market for the first time since 19 March, peaking 1.8% higher at 100.03 rubles, while the dollar rose as much as 1.9% to 86.01 rubles. Alfa-Capital trader Vladislav Silaev tied the move to falling seaborne exports through Novorossiysk after attacks on port infrastructure: Kommersant, citing Argus, put August crude shipments to India down 4.4-fold at 516,000 tonnes and to China down threefold at 94,000 tonnes, with combined Russian and Kazakh exports from Novorossiysk and Baltic ports 26% below July levels over 1–21 August. Finam's Yaroslav Kabakov said a weaker ruble helps exporters but complicates the central bank's inflation fight; analysts at Bank Sankt-Peterburg see further weakness raising the odds that the CBR leaves its key rate at 14% at the next meeting.
Source: Forbes.ru, 27 Aug 2026
Average retail gasoline prices rose 0.9% in the week to 24 August, to 77.05 rubles per litre (about €0.77), Rosstat reported. AI-92 moved from 72.49 to 73.08 rubles and AI-95 from 78.58 to 79.32 rubles, with increases recorded in 55 regions and the steepest in Dagestan at 7.8%; diesel eased 0.4% to 88.40 rubles per litre. Consultancy B1 told Vedomosti that pump prices could keep climbing 1–2% per month through year-end under its base case of slow refinery repairs held in check by the fuel export ban and imports — a running cost increase for every logistics and industrial operation in the country.
Source: Vedomosti, 26 Aug 2026
TotalEnergies transferred its 10% stake in Arctic LNG 2 to Nordline, a Novatek subsidiary set up in May, the French group said. It retains a claim to roughly $1.3 billion in loans extended to the project, recoverable in future subject to sanctions in force; TotalEnergies wrote down $4.1 billion of Russian assets in 2022, mostly its Arctic LNG 2 holding. The project has been under US sanctions since November 2023: two of three 6.6 million-tonne trains are running and the third has slipped from 2026 to 2028. The operating company was originally a joint venture of Novatek (60%), TotalEnergies (10%) and China's CNPC and CNOOC (10% each).
Source: Forbes.ru, 27 Aug 2026