[Updated] Ozon registers two in-house insurance companies, plans to i…

Dagestan's People's Assembly voted Fyodor Shchukin into office as republic head, with 78 of 87 deputies in favour. Shchukin had been acting head since early May. His predecessor Sergei Melikov resigned of his own accord and in late September was appointed senator for Bryansk region. Putin had also put forward deputy speaker Kamil Davdiev and the regional KPRF faction leader Samir Abdulkalikov. The same day, the republican government resigned after the new head was elected, according to Interfax.

Under a presidential decree dated 15 October published on the legal acts portal, the management company Tsentr Kapital received external control of five companies: Kappa Rus, Tarkett, Menshen Packaging CIS, Ontex Ru and Eivosis Packaging Kuban, with combined annual revenue above 50 billion roubles. Citing its data, the report puts 2025 revenue at 16.5 billion roubles for Kappa Rus, 19.3 billion for Tarkett, 10.3 billion for Ontex Ru, 6.1 billion for Eivosis Packaging Kuban and about 1.4 billion for Menshen Packaging CIS.

Russia's Justice Ministry added three foreign NGOs to the undesirable organizations registry: the Dutch Stichting Raam op Rusland (RAAM), the Georgian community Frame, and the Leipzig-based Institute of Moldova from Germany. According to the report, the ministry's website did not state the reasons.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday set out the conditions for resuming dialogue between Russia and Moldova. Interfax reported the same day that the Kremlin said Moldova needs to abandon its anti-Russian line to restore dialogue; Gazeta.Ru reported that the Kremlin also urged Moldovan authorities to free the head of Gagauzia.

Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Polyansky, said Russia is forced to prepare a military response to NATO exercises near its borders.

ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Horn said ASEAN countries want to cooperate with Russia in energy and described Russia as one of the largest energy suppliers.

Yemen's health minister said a Houthi missile strike on the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden killed five people and injured 16, all of them palace guards and civilian staff. A government source said five ballistic missiles were fired at the palace. The Houthis said they targeted a Saudi military operations room inside the palace.

According to the Bank of Russia's preliminary estimate, the ruble's real effective exchange rate against the currencies of Russia's main trading partners fell 2.4% in September 2026 versus August. Over January-September 2026 the indicator fell 7.4%.

Speaking at the congress of the Delovaya Rossiya public organization, Vladimir Putin said pension funds and other citizens' money in the stock market must be reliably protected; he said that where pension funds are concerned, everything must be guaranteed especially solidly. He added that the potential of Russia's stock market is not fully realised and private money needs to be attracted, but carefully.

Russian equities corrected lower on Thursday after Rosstat data showed annual inflation accelerating, with investors taking profits following the early-week rally on news of the US-Russia diesel supply agreement. The Moscow Exchange index closed at 2,386.81 (-1.4%) and the RTS index at 897.68 (-1.2%). Leading decliners included Tatneft (-3.8%), MKB (-2.9%), MMK (-2.7%) and Aeroflot (-2.5%), while Polyus rose 0.8%.

The Moscow region office of the consumer watchdog said it immediately opened a sanitary-epidemiological inquiry after information about a possible monkeypox case. Five people have been hospitalised and are under medical observation, a disinfection order has been issued and contacts are being traced. The office said test systems able to detect the virus quickly have been developed and registered. The regional health ministry earlier said the five patients were in satisfactory condition with no clinical symptoms.

St Petersburg shops, beauty salons, massage parlours and hairdressers are banned from hiring foreigners working under patents until the end of 2026, the city administration's press service said. The restriction does not apply to citizens of EAEU member states or to foreigners holding work permits, including highly qualified specialists. Governor Alexander Beglov's decision added retail, fitness and wellness, certain medical activities, and beauty and hairdressing services to the banned list. Businesses have until 15 December to bring staffing into line.

RBC reported that Sevastopol will scrap the QR-code requirement for buying petrol. Interfax reported the same day that free fuel sales resumed in the city.

Interfax reported that all the capital's airports suspended operations amid a drone attack. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said another 11 drones heading for Moscow were downed on Thursday, bringing the total to 21. Emergency crews are working at debris impact sites.

Interfax reported that Russian forces downed 80 Ukrainian drones over the regions since Thursday morning.

RIA Novosti reported that the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria declared a missile danger.

Gazprom said it is ready to supply consumers reliably this winter, having completed all scheduled and repair work on the Unified Gas Supply System and the Power of Siberia pipeline by 1 October 2026. Russia's underground storage holds an operational reserve of 73.296 billion cubic metres, described by the company as a historic record. Including Gazprom's storage in Belarus and Armenia, the reserve reaches 74.543 billion cubic metres.

Interfax reported that Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade approved technology fee rates for smartphones, phones and laptops. Specific rates were not given in the report.

Kommersant reported that Ildar Abdrazakov has been appointed director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

Kommersant reported that Russia's Health Ministry has registered the drug Nimolancim for the treatment of tumours.

Kommersant, citing Unified State Register of Legal Entities data published on 15 October, reports that Ozon has set up two insurance companies — Ozon Strakhovanie and Ozon Strakhovanie Zhizni — both owned by Ozon Capital and both headed by Denis Gavrilov, who runs the insurance line inside Ozon's fintech business. Ozon told the paper that having insurers in the group will let it "build products from scratch and launch them faster, fully controlling the process," while it continues working with other insurers under the partnership model and plans to obtain the required licences. It intends to develop insurance for small and medium-sized businesses and for individuals, including life insurance products. Lawyers and consultants cited by the paper estimate that initial funding needs could exceed 1 billion rubles: each company currently has charter capital of 10,000 rubles, while the law requires a minimum of 300 million rubles for a general insurer and 450 million rubles for a life insurer, so recapitalisation will be needed. The Central Bank must decide on a licence within 30 days of receiving a complete document package, though in practice obtaining one can take at least six months. Interfax, reporting the same registration at 13:31 on 15 October, added that Ozon has been running insurance since 2024 under a partnership model with Renaissance Insurance, VSK, Sogaz, Ingosstrakh and others, covering property, auto, health, cargo and fraud protection. Neither article says whether the new companies will take on insurance of sellers' goods, and no launch date for a first product is given.

Yandex says it has restored access to the Direct advertising account: it can be opened both on the web and in the mobile app, allowing advertisers to launch previously created campaigns or stop active ones, top up the balance and set weekly budget limits on the shared account. However, statistics may be incomplete, settings cannot be edited, and some tools may be unavailable; functionality is being restored in stages. The company explained that between 8 and 11 October its data centres in the Ryazan region, Kaluga and Vladimir were damaged by drone attacks, and part of its computing capacity has not yet been restored, so data is processed more slowly and statistics and reports in the Direct interface may be incomplete. Alexey Shtokolov, product and technology director at Yandex Ads, said the infrastructure damage could have affected the performance of individual campaigns: automated strategies need time to adapt, and advertisers usually give algorithms a few weeks to accumulate statistics; running campaigns already have pre-outage data, so adaptation is expected to take less time. According to the article, more than 630,000 advertisers use Direct; advertising accounts became unavailable on 11 October. No date is given for full restoration.

At its session on 15 October the State Duma ratified the agreement between the Russian and Chinese governments on jointly building a second 1,435 mm main track on the cross-border Zabaikalsk–Manzhouli rail section. The document was signed in Beijing on 20 May 2026; on the Russian side it was signed by Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin and Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev during President Vladimir Putin's official visit to Beijing. Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin noted that Russia–China trade turnover over nine months came to almost $215 billion, and that the project will help develop bilateral ties more effectively. Nikitin was quoted as saying at signing that implementation will raise the Zabaikalsk crossing's throughput by 11 million tonnes by 2030, enabling the exchange of nearly 50 train pairs a day. The explanatory note states the agreement will not entail negative social, economic, financial or other consequences and will not adversely affect the achievement of state programme goals. No start or completion dates are given, and no estimate is made of the impact on e-commerce parcel shipments.

Kazakhstan's transport ministry says Kazakhstan and Russia have launched the first pilot international road haulage using the electronic e-CMR consignment note, on the Astana–Moscow route, under a Eurasian Economic Union pilot project. According to the ministry, e-CMR will cut paperwork costs, speed up information exchange between parties to the carriage, provide real-time cargo status and reduce dependence on paper documents. The pilot is meant to work through the mechanism for using the electronic note on the Kazakhstan–Russia route and to lay the basis for broader digital cooperation in international transport. No end date, participant list or rollout schedule is given.

Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade has issued an order setting the technology fee rate for certain radio-electronic products; the document was published on the official information portal. The fee takes effect on 1 December 2026 for laptops, smartphones and telephone sets, with rates differentiated by product type and by whether the trademark or model is included in the register of trademarks and models. Under the order, the base rate for laptops is 746 rubles per unit — 500 rubles if trademark and model data are present in the marking system and 992 rubles if not. For smartphones the figures are 373, 250 and 496 rubles respectively. Wired telephones with a wireless handset are set at 149 rubles (100 and 198), cellular handsets at 75 rubles (50 and 100), and other telephone sets at 37 rubles (25 and 49). The technology fee was introduced by November 2025 amendments to the law on industrial policy in the Russian Federation: it is paid to the federal budget in connection with the import into Russia or domestic production of electronic component bases (electronic modules) and industrial products containing them, with product lists and rates set by the government. The law caps a single industrial fee payment at 5,000 rubles. The article does not spell out the payment procedure or the treatment of cross-border e-commerce import shipments, so the impact on Chinese sellers remains unconfirmed.

Kommersant obtained a letter from the Digital Platforms Association, which brings together the largest online marketplaces, dated 18 September to Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Sazanov asking that reduced simplified-tax-system (UST) rates for wholesale and retail trade be retained. The paper recalls that the ministry's work on scrapping regional UST rates first became known in the summer of 2026, with the measure justified by concerns that businesses deliberately avoid taxes through regional relief; offline retailers and regional shopping-centre owners have recently made similar proposals. Base UST rates are currently 6% on income and 15% on income less expenses, with regions able to set them within 1–6% and 5–15% respectively — in 2026 Tatarstan applies 1% and 3%, St Petersburg 1–3% and 5–7%. Association president Oraz Durdyev argues that removing the reduced rates for 2027 would hit e-commerce players affected by attacks on logistics centres: "Good-faith taxpayers would suffer first, which is unacceptable under extraordinary circumstances." Drone attacks on marketplace warehouses began on 18 July 2026; according to the paper, 33 Wildberries centres and 9 Ozon facilities were hit, and IBC Global data put the total area of targeted sites at over 3.7 million square metres, with more than 1.5 million square metres damaged. The share of sellers using the simplified system was about 76% of the total last year. Wildberries said the extra tax burden will inevitably force entrepreneurs to find resources to offset it, so sellers may revisit prices; Ozon and Yandex Market declined to comment. Analysts at the Centre for Tax Policy and the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences projected that under-collected taxes from abusive use of relief could reach 440–690 billion rubles in 2026. The article carries no Finance Ministry reply, no legislative timetable and nothing on applicability to non-Russian sellers.

According to preliminary estimates from International Data Corporation (IDC), global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 fell 22% year-on-year to 255.3 million units, the steepest drop since the company began tracking the market. IDC says the memory market crisis triggered by AI development continues to destabilise the smartphone market, driving an unprecedented rise in component costs and serious supply-chain disruption. Research director Nabila Popal said current indicators show the market has not yet bottomed out, with spending on memory chips up roughly 350% from last year and still rising, putting heavy pressure on vendors' margins and shipment volumes. IDC expects the market to recover no earlier than 2028. The company notes that pressure is shifting from manufacturers to consumers: as price rises reach retail, many buyers choose to keep their current devices longer. The vendor ranking was unchanged from the previous quarter, with Samsung and Apple continuing to gain share while Chinese vendors saw a marked decline in shipments — IDC says Chinese brands, focused on the budget segment, must choose between protecting margins and maintaining volumes. No separate data for the Russian market or online channels is given.

Interfax, citing the Bank of Russia's Regional Economy report, says this year's low Pacific salmon catch in Russia has led to a supply shortage of red fish and caviar on the domestic market and to higher prices. By the end of September 2026, wholesale prices for pink salmon and chum salmon had risen almost twofold year-on-year and by more than 1.5 times against the first half of 2026; sockeye salmon rose by about a third both year-on-year and against the first half. The regulator attributes this mainly to supply shortages, which persist even though "individual fishing companies decided to abandon exports of red fish and caviar, directing their entire output to the domestic market." The state company DRUK was among those that took this decision; the head of the Federal Fisheries Agency, Ilya Shestakov, spoke about it at a fisheries forum in September. According to the agency, about 100,000 tonnes of salmon were caught this season. The CBR report notes that over January–September 2026 the catch was more than three times below the same period of 2025 and more than twice below the comparable 2024 figure — salmon catches should be compared even year to even year and odd to odd because of the pink salmon life cycle — with the main reasons being changing climatic conditions and weak runs. Fishing companies said the season's results did not cover preparation costs, worsening their financial position. The CBR also records wholesale prices for pollock and cod rising more than 1.5-fold since the start of the year despite higher catches, mainly due to strong export demand and favourable external market conditions. The article does not address retail prices in online channels or Chinese imports.

The Bank of Russia's official rate interface returns the following for 16 October 2026: USD 83.7600 rubles, EUR 93.7693 rubles, CNY 12.4991 rubles (nominal 1). Interfax reports that the regulator lowered the official dollar rate by 18.97 kopecks to 83.76 rubles per dollar and cut the euro rate by 15.36 kopecks to 93.7693 rubles. On the Moscow Exchange the yuan stood at 12.4825 rubles at 19:00, up 3.65 kopecks from the previous close; the agency attributes the ruble's decline to profit-taking after gains in prior sessions. Analysts quoted expect a range of 83–85 rubles per dollar and 12.4–12.7 rubles per yuan until the end of the week. The previous rate set in force on the coverage day (interface date 15 October 2026) was USD 83.9497, EUR 93.9229, CNY 12.5358 rubles. The interface does not return a publication time.

Citing data published by China's General Administration of Customs on 14 October: Chinese exports in September rose 36.3% to a record $447.18 billion, while imports rose 31% to a record $313.66 billion; total foreign trade over January–September grew 18.8% to $5.94 trillion. The September trade surplus was $133.53 billion, the highest since January 2025, with the nine-month surplus at $938.11 billion (+8%). Exports from China to Russia rose 12.9% in September to $13.39 billion and 33.1% over January–September to $98.06 billion; imports from Russia to China rose 13.9% to $15.67 billion and 28.6% to $116.24 billion respectively. The paper quotes Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said at a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Baku on 14 October that he hopes the record bilateral trade figure of $244.8 billion set in 2024 will be beaten in 2026. It also notes that Chinese integrated circuit exports rose 2.4-fold year-on-year in September to $45 billion, reaching $302 billion over nine months. HSE University professor Sergey Tsyplakov is quoted as saying that trade growth with Russia reflects favourable commodity prices: although China's physical oil purchases fell, supplies from Russia grew. No separate data on marketplaces or consumer categories is given, so the direct impact on Chinese cross-border sellers remains unconfirmed.

Lenta.ru, citing Bank of Russia estimates, reports that the ruble's real effective exchange rate against a basket of the currencies of Russia's main trading partners fell 2.4% in September 2026 versus August and 7.4% over January–September. Against the dollar the real rate fell 2.3% in September and 6.6% over January–September, with August and January–August declines of 7.1% and 5.1% respectively. The piece explains that the effective rate is calculated from the currencies of key trading partners weighted by their shares in Russia's foreign trade turnover; CBR data show the indicator rose 25.2% over the first eleven months of last year (29.8% against the dollar), accelerating in early 2026 to 26.9% overall and 34.2% against the dollar. Interfax reported the same preliminary CBR estimates for September and January–September at 18:11 on 15 October. Neither source draws conclusions on effects for yuan settlement or product pricing.

According to the Bank of Russia's preliminary balance of payments estimate, Russia's current account surplus was $3.3 billion in August 2026, against a revised $1.6 billion in July and a deficit of $0.5 billion in August 2025. Over January–August the current account surplus came to $35 billion versus $21 billion a year earlier. The regulator attributes the increase mainly to a higher value of goods exports. The goods trade surplus rose to $91.6 billion from $73.3 billion a year earlier, while the services deficit widened to $33.7 billion, $2.3 billion more year-on-year, driven by faster import growth — higher spending by Russians travelling abroad and a larger value of transport services provided by non-residents — while export growth was moderate and came mainly from transport services. External liabilities rose by $23.3 billion ($5.8 billion a year earlier), with a notable increase in non-resident balances on accounts and deposits. Reserve assets rose by $7.5 billion, against a $12.8 billion decline last year. Interfax reported the same figures from the same estimate at 16:18 on 15 October.