Russia

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Opponents of Putin say that he has built an increasingly repressive political system that relies heavily on the FSB. Supporters of Putin say that Russia is under hybrid-attack from major Western powers and needs the FSB to ensure security and to preserve the sovereignty of Russia.

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Russia’s spending on military personnel reached a record 2 trillion rubles ($25.68 billion) in the first half of 2025, according to new estimates from Re: Russia, an analytical platform run by exiled Russian academics.

The surge in spending — driven by enlistment bonuses, salaries and compensation for wounded soldiers and bereaved families — reflects the Kremlin’s determination to keep waging its war in Ukraine at any cost.

Between January and June, federal and regional budgets allocated an estimated 400 billion rubles ($5.14 billion) for enlistment bonuses, 865 billion rubles ($11.11 billion) for military salaries and 765 billion rubles ($9.82 billion) in payments to families of the dead and wounded.

If the current pace of spending continues, total personnel costs are projected to exceed 4 trillion rubles ($51.36 billion) by year’s end.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38351794

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In March 2025, as part of a major offensive in the Kursk region to retake territory held by Ukrainian forces since August 2024, Russian troops crawled through a branch of the decommissioned Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod pipeline in an attempt to slip behind Ukrainian lines.

The video is framed as “the truth about the operation, told by the fighters who took part.” It consists largely of an interview with an unidentified man in camouflage, who claims to be one of the Russian soldiers involved. A few other soldiers briefly appear on camera, and the video also contains footage from inside the pipeline. It’s unclear how Severny [Telegram] Kanal obtained this material.

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Approximately 38% of employed Russians have no financial cushion in case of emergency, according to business daily RBC, citing research conducted by headhunting firm SuperJob on Thursday.

Among those with savings, the study found that 13% could live on their savings for less than a month, 24% for one to two months, 12% for three to six months and 7% from six months to one year.

Only 6% of respondents said that their savings could last them for more than a year without a salary.

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Separate findings from a survey by accounting firm Aktion Buchgaltera suggest that Russian employers are preparing for wage reductions.

16.5% of enterprises reportedly plan to decrease salaries within the next year, while 3.6% of companies intend to implement such cuts within the coming three months.

In 41.4% of cases, companies cited declining revenues and a need for better financial management as reasons for reducing salaries.

The majority of surveyed businesses, 93.3%, stated that they had not reduced salaries in the last two to three years.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38181164

Britain on Monday targeted two Russian individuals and one Russian entity as part of its chemical weapons sanctions regime, in its latest effort to punish Moscow for the war in Ukraine.

It imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Aleksey Viktorovich Rtishchev and Andrei Marchenko, the head and deputy head of Russia's radiological chemical and biological defence troops, for their role in the transfer and use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, the British government said.

It said the Joint Stock Company Federal Scientific and Production Centre Scientific Research Institute of Applied Chemistry was sanctioned for supplying RG-Vo riot control agent grenades to the Russian military.

The grenades have been used as a method of warfare against Ukraine in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the British government said.

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Russia has sharply reduced state support for small and medium-sized businesses as it grapples with a widening budget deficit and economic slowdown, raising concerns among economists and business leaders about the sector’s long-term health.

Government subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dropped by 43% in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period last year, according to a new report by the Higher School of Economics Development Center.

Total assistance fell from 127.8 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) to 72.3 billion rubles ($918 million).

That figure is also lower than the level of support provided in early 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when it stood at 75.8 billion rubles ($962 million).

At the same time, the number of SMEs and self-employed individuals receiving government aid declined by 17%, reaching 99,200 recipients.

The cuts reflect a broader shift in the Kremlin’s approach to business support, with planned allocations for the SME sector over the 2025-2030 period totaling 330 billion rubles ($4.2 billion), a 20% reduction from the previous six-year plan.

Lending programs, particularly the popular 1764 initiative that offered subsidized interest rates through commercial banks, have been hit hardest.

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• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is one of Russia’s allies in Europe. He claims that the EU is helping Ukraine at the expense of European interests and that Hungary will not quit Russian oil and gas. Experts and the press suspect that the Russian authorities have given Orban’s inner circle the opportunity to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from energy commodities trading.
• At the center of attention is the mysterious trader of Russian oil, Normeston Trading, which in 2009 got half of a gas trader created by Hungary’s largest oil and gas company, MOL, and then transferred its stake to Orban’s friends and their partners.
• Normeston Trading itself, on the Hungarian side, is co-owned by people affiliated with Orban’s friends. For years, the press and experts have tried to understand how Normeston could be connected to Russia’s top political circles.
• IStories found out that the former Russian owner of Normeston — race car driver Lev Tolkachev — was also a business partner of Gennady Timchenko’s top-managers. Vladimir Putin's close friend Timtchenko was the biggest Russian oil trader before 2014 sanctions. One of his former managers, Aleksandr Zhuravlev, still sits on the boards of some companies in the Normeston group together with the race car driver.
• In 2017 and 2018, Cyprus-based Normeston Trading was “under common control” with the Russian company of the race car driver, which was half-owned by another Timchenko top manager — Sergey Gzhelyak. In Cyprus, “common control” means that the companies are owned or their finances are controlled by the same parties.
• After the race car driver, the Russian businessman Valery Subbotin became a co-owner of Normeston. Subbotin is a former vice president of Lukoil, who fled from Russia in 2016 and settled in Europe, but established business ties with Putin’s friends and the entourage of former pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

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Russia’s state statistics agency Rosstat has stopped publishing monthly data on births and deaths, a move that comes amid a deepening demographic crisis and ongoing troop losses in the war against Ukraine.

For the first time, Rosstat last week released its monthly socio-economic report without including figures on births, deaths, migration or the country’s total population.

The agency had already stopped releasing regional breakdowns of births and deaths earlier this year.

“Since March 2025, there’s been virtually no publicly available demographic data in Russia,” demographer Alexei Raksha wrote at the time. “We consider the full suppression of regional demographic statistics a clear sign of failed demographic policy at the regional level.”

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Raksha [cited] internal data from an unnamed region allegedly showing life expectancy for men dropping from 66 years in 2024 to 61 in mid-2025, while life expectancy for women held steady at 75.

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Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has gradually restricted access to demographic data that experts have used to infer wartime casualties, including deaths by age, region and cause.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/38014283

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Russia is increasing foreign-currency sales from the National Wealth Fund [NWF] to address a growing budget deficit after oil and gas revenues plunged to their lowest level since January 2023.

Russia’s Central Bank, acting on Finance Ministry instructions, will sell yuan on the Moscow Exchange at a rate of 9.8 billion rubles ($124 million) per day from July 7 to Aug. 6, an increase of 2.5 billion rubles ($31 million) per day compared to June.

This marks the second time in 2025 that the Kremlin has dipped into the NWF a sovereign reserve built largely from oil and gas revenues, to manage fiscal shortfalls.

But the fund's remaining liquidity is shrinking fast.

At the start of July, the NWF’s liquid assets stood at 4.1 trillion rubles ($52.6 billion), including 1.3 trillion rubles in yuan and gold acquired during last year’s oil-price windfall.

[The fund's main responsibiliy is to support the Russian pension system, but it is also used to fund budget deficits.]

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Russia’s wealthiest business magnates pulled a record amount of cash from their companies in the form of dividends in 2024, Forbes Russia has said in a new report.

The news comes as the country’s economy teeters on the edge of recession.

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Total payouts from major Russian corporations to 50 of the wealthiest businessmen in the country reached a historic high of 1.769 trillion rubles ($20 billion) in 2024. In comparison, these figures had remained under 1.4 trillion rubles ($18.2 billion) in both 2022 and 2023.

At least 11 individuals received over 50 billion rubles ($650 million) each in dividends last year.

The top recipient was Alexei Mordashov, the controlling shareholder of steel giant Severstal, who, along with affiliated entities, received 201.8 billion rubles ($2.62 billion).

Close behind was Lukoil co-owner Vagit Alekperov, who took home 201 billion rubles ($2.61 billion).

Steel tycoon Vladimir Lisin, who rejoined the billionaire rankings this year, claimed third place with nearly 152 billion rubles ($1.98 billion), most of it in dividends from his company NLMK.

Rounding out the top five were Leonid Mikhelson, a key shareholder in gas and petrochemical firms Novatek and Sibur (104 billion rubles, or $1.35 billion), and Alisher Usmanov, the head of holding company USM (96.2 billion rubles, or $1.25 billion).

The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a lobbying group representing the country’s largest corporations, including many of the individuals named, has been voicing concern about the state of the economy for the past two years. It warned that borrowing costs are now unsustainable due to the Central Bank’s key interest rate, with many companies approaching technical default.

The RSPP said that the Russian economy has exhibited clear signs of recession, particularly in the civilian sectors still reeling from Western sanctions, since late 2024.

Meanwhile, more than 50 firms opted to retain earnings in 2024. According to Igor Danilenko, director of investments at Renaissance Capital, these companies maintained liquidity and directed profits to operational goals and investments.

But the country’s richest individuals appear to have chosen to prioritize personal payouts over corporate stability.

Severstal CEO Alexander Shevelev even warned that if current financial pressures persist, steel companies may be forced to halt production entirely.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37905152

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The [Ukrainian] foreign ministry said that Russian use of anti-personnel mines since 2014, which increased after the full-scale invasion of 2022, has created an unequal situation that limits Ukraine’s right to self-defence.

In his nightly video address, Zelensky accused Moscow of “using anti-personnel mines with utmost cynicism” in Ukrainian territory and of seeking to “destroy life by all means at their disposal”. He also described anti-personnel mines as “often the instrument for which nothing can be substituted for defence purposes”.

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Children of soldiers deployed to Ukraine are increasingly being classified as “at-risk” and removed from their homes to state-run orphanages and boarding schools, according to reports from officials in several Russian regions reviewed by the Sibirskiy Ekspress Telegram channel.

Olga Kazantseva, the children’s rights commissioner for the Altai region, warned of a “rise in indicators of family dysfunction” among families of those serving in Ukraine.

“Dozens of soldiers’ families are now registered with municipal commissions for juvenile affairs,” she told the regional parliament. “This is a serious issue requiring urgent attention to keep children with their families and address underlying causes.”

In the Zabaikalsky region, children’s ombudswoman Natalia Epova reported that soldiers’ children have been grouped into “special categories of adolescents” alongside orphans and minors from single-parent or dysfunctional households. Regional employment services there have helped 27 of these children find part-time work outside school hours.

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Wage arrears among Russian companies surged in early 2025, reflecting growing financial pressures on businesses across several key industries, according to a report from the General Confederation of Trade Unions obtained by the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia.

While official government statistics indicate that wage arrears increased from 500 million rubles ($6 million) in January to 1.5 billion rubles ($18 million) by March, the trade union report estimates the actual total to be significantly higher — reaching 2.4 billion rubles ($30 million) in the first quarter of the year.

The largest arrears were recorded at DSK, a road construction company in the Tver region, which owed 608 million rubles ($8 million) to 3,657 employees as of late March.

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Russia has decided to classify data on the state of the economy and foreign trade as a state secret. From now on, only individual indicators that are favorable to the authorities will be disclosed in order to calm the public, UNIAN reported.

According to data from the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, serious crisis processes are observed in the coal mining, oil refining, construction, automotive and logistics industries of the Russian Federation, which in general provide about 17% of revenues to the federal budget.

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The EU extended sanctions against Russia for another six months.

Due to Moscow's continued actions destabilizing the situation in Ukraine.

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The report comes as defense drives Russia’s industrial growth while civilian production contracts.

Russia’s industrial sector, fueled by the defense sector, grew by 1.6% in May and 1.8% over the last year after accounting for seasonal factors, state statistics service Rosstat has reported.

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Civilian industries have reported widespread contractions, leading analysts to warn that Russia’s economy has become disproportionately driven by the military-industrial complex in the fourth year of its invasion of Ukraine.

Tverdye Tsifr (“Hard Numbers”), a Telegram channel that reports on financial data, noted a 42% surge in the output of “miscellaneous transport equipment” and a 14% increase in finished metal products over the last month, compensating for weaker performance in March and April.

Clothing production increased by 12%, and production of electronic and optical products, computers and pharmaceuticals rose by 9%.

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Analysts from Russia’s largest private bank Alfa-Bank described the May results as evidence of a highly segmented economy.

Previously, “when civilian growth was weak and defense growth was robust, all sectors expanded to some degree,” wrote MMI, a Telegram channel that analyzes Russian and global microstatistics, of the new divergence between military and civilian industry.

“Now, all civilian industries have recorded declines, while defense output has accelerated. There are not enough resources to go around for everyone, so someone has to cut back,” it said.

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Rosstat reported that the producer price index for industrial goods shrank by 1.3% in May and by 2.8% since the start of the year.

A sustained decline in industrial prices, Promsvyazbank warned, “signals the real economy’s diminished resilience to high interest rates.”

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According to the government-affiliated CMACP analytical center, industrial growth has been mostly concentrated in the defense sector, with civilian industries remaining stagnant since mid-2023.

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Uncertain personal finances and the national economic climate are among Russians' top reasons for delaying or forgoing having children, according to survey results obtained by the RBC news website.

The survey, conducted by the CSP Platform and the company Online Interviewer, polled respondents from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and allowed participants to choose up to five factors that influence their decisions about parenthood.

Among the 1,200 respondents aged 18 to 49, 79% chose financial circumstances as a deterrent to having children.

Half said their income, or their partner’s, was too low to support a child.

Uncertainty over the future attributed to ongoing crises or environmental issues was cited by 41%, while 39% referred to the economic situation in Russia.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37767518

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Three years [ago], the governor of St. Petersburg signed a sister-city agreement with the occupying authorities of Mariupol, the Ukrainian port city that was razed to the ground in a devastating Russian siege just weeks beforehand.

“Since then, St. Petersburg has hosted children from Mariupol for every camp session — both in summer and winter,” said Governor Alexander Beglov.

This summer, Russian authorities are organizing five three-week camp sessions for children from the occupied city. Each session is led by child psychologists, St. Petersburg schoolteachers and camp counselors who recently graduated from teacher training college.

More than 2,000 schoolchildren from Mariupol in total are expected to attend camps in St. Petersburg this year.

Initially, Russian authorities billed these summer programs as health and wellness retreats for children who had lived under Russian shelling.

But from the very first sessions, children were also taught to develop respect and love for the country that seized their home city.

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Today Ukraine has confirmed the deportation of 19,546 children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia, though experts say the real number is likely much higher.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in connection with these deportations.

Ukrainian experts say Russia is deliberately stripping these children of their Ukrainian identity and raising them to become Russians, turning minors into a new generation loyal to the Kremlin.

The educational program at Camp Druzhnykh lists goals that include fostering a national — that is, Russian — identity among the children.

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The camp also organizes a career fair where children can learn about the job market in Russia. In June, it featured a police college that accepts students as early as ninth grade. Students from the college spoke to the children about the ceremonial police oath and showed them how to take fingerprints.

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Now in high school, Masha [a girl form Mariupol, not her real name] quietly dreams of moving to St. Petersburg for university. But when she talks about the future, there is a sadness in her voice [...] “I used to think living in Russia was easy. But then my mom tried to get a job at Pyaterochka [a discount supermarket chain], and the salary was under 20,000 rubles (less than $253) — while the country’s minimum subsistence level is 17,000 ($215). That’s when I realized life in Russia is hard. You don’t live — you survive.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37766685

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About 80% of the components Russia uses for weapons production come through China, posing the biggest challenge to the EU’s sanctions policy.

This was stated by David O'Sullivan, the EU Special Envoy for Sanctions Implementation related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, during the “Fair Play: Honest Game” conference on additional sanctions against Russia held Friday in Kyiv, reports Ukrinform.

“About 80% of these goods enter Russia via China or Hong Kong and China. It’s a very difficult conversation. When President von der Leyen, or President Costa speak about this at summits, or our member states, President Macron, Chancellor Scholz when he was in Beijing — the Chinese usually respond: ‘We don’t understand what you mean. We don’t supply anything with military use for Russia.’ So we keep pressing, but the response is lukewarm. You see this in many products made in China. These are Chinese copies of Western brands,” explained O’Sullivan.

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He added that similar difficult negotiations happen in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Singapore, where he plans to go again next month, as many local companies are subsidiaries of European firms.

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According to the special envoy, companies have introduced clauses banning resale to Russia and conduct client checks, but at some point their components disappear into a “wild field,” making supply chain control impossible.

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“I try to explain to manufacturers in third countries that these components — especially a list of 50 joint priority categories we prepared closely with Ukrainians — may seem harmless. These include optical readers, integrated circuits, microchips, flash memory cards, which are found in our phones and computers. But when they get to Russia, it becomes weapons of war,” O’Sullivan detailed.

https://archive.ph/6fZjC