[Update] Ozon to spend over RUB10bn supporting pickup-point owners in…

On 20 October the State Duma's electronic database published a draft resolution approving incumbent Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin as Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. The document was submitted by the Duma Committee on Transport and Transport Infrastructure Development, which had earlier unanimously backed Nikitin and also approved Dmitry Yadrov for the post of Transport Minister. The nominations were submitted to the Duma by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on 19 October; the chamber will consider them at its session on 21 October.

The State Duma plenary session of 20 October had about 15 items on its agenda and reviewed around 10 bills: 9 were adopted in the first reading, 1 in the second and 1 in the third. Law No. 1182700-8, passed in the second and third readings, bans the sale, donation or lease of state- or municipally-owned land plots occupied by military burials and restricts turnover of plots hosting border and customs control facilities. First-reading bills include No. 1336416-8 on regular inspections of bomb shelters, emergency alert systems and other civil defence facilities during mobilisation, martial law and wartime; No. 1272484-8 allowing the federal state company 'Unified Customer in Construction' to take on, in exceptional cases, reconstruction of regionally-owned hospitals, schools and culture houses; No. 1269756-8 on bringing banks that take funds only from legal entities and sole proprietors into the deposit insurance system; No. 1236943-8 establishing the mechanism for foreign exchange operations with digital roubles; and No. 1208198-8 empowering the Bank of Russia to approve a list of states and territories where persons holding shares in organisations operating on the Russian financial market may not be registered.

Incumbent Russian Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin, nominated for the post of Deputy Prime Minister, told lawmakers that both in his current position and, if supported, in the new one he would continue to work on transport development. He named three blocks of tasks: transport connectivity of the regions and accessibility of social, educational and medical facilities; securing orders for Russian industry, citing the supply of Russian aircraft and saying the domestic aviation industry had been given load; and development of international transport corridors together with Asian partners plus reliable freight logistics. Federal Air Transport Agency head Yadrov, nominated as transport minister, said he was confident he could fulfil the tasks set by the government and the president. Mikhail Mishustin sent the nominations of new government members to the State Duma on 19 October, and on 20 October the candidates held consultations with factions and committees.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that the talks between the United States and Ukraine in Oslo produced 'real progress' and that the sides found certain elements of peace for settling the conflict. He said progress was achieved on two levels: first, the overall picture, and second, the short-term horizon. The text does not specify what those elements are.

US President Donald Trump told reporters on 20 October that the United States gave a great deal to Ukraine and got absolutely nothing in return except grief, death and huge financial losses. The same day he described Russia as a big machine that keeps moving slowly forward in Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on 20 October that Kyiv must explain the flight of a Ukrainian drone over Poland which later exploded in Lithuania, and that he expects Ukraine's full readiness to cooperate in establishing exactly what happened. He stressed that Poland does not allow operations on or over its territory without prior coordination, and said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda had arrived in Warsaw to discuss the incident. According to the report, the drone was meant to take part in an attack on St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the average federal budget deficit for 2027-2029 will be about 2% of GDP, a small figure given the large-scale tasks facing the country. He said the budget deficit of G20 countries is 2.5 times higher than Russia's, averaging about 5% of GDP, and that a deficit of 2% of GDP allows Russia to keep public debt low.

At 09:00 Moscow time on 20 October, the December 2026 Brent futures contract on ICE traded at $111.05 a barrel, up 1.37%, the first time above $111 since 20 May. By 10:30 Moscow time the gain slowed to 0.98% at $110.62 a barrel, while the November WTI contract stood at $99.39 a barrel, up 0.86%.

Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service Maxim Shaskolsky said that since the start of the year the service has opened 70 antimonopoly cases over fuel-market violations and issued 102 warnings to oil companies, two-thirds of which have been complied with. He added that 125 agreements are currently in place in 44 regions between local authorities and independent filling-station operators.

Yevgeny Masharov, a member of the Civic Chamber commission on public control and work with citizens' appeals, said amendments to the Russian Labour Code taking effect on 1 March 2027 introduce an official concept of 'internship in the sphere of labour', which the code previously lacked, and fix the status of interns. The new article sets a maximum contract term of six months, keeps the contract fixed-term, and obliges the employer to arrange mentoring. Such a contract must be concluded no later than one year after the relevant professional education or training, and the job title must indicate intern status, for example 'consultant intern'. If a new labour contract is signed after the internship, no probation period may be set. The rules do not cover occupational-safety internships, internships for admission to certain types of activity, or internships of state and municipal employees.

The Supreme Court of Russia did not accept an SMS code as sufficient consent for taking out a loan. The case concerned a loan whose full amount was immediately transferred to another account: a Moscow resident gave the code from an SMS to fraudsters, a loan agreement was instantly drawn up in his name and the money was immediately transferred to a third party. The courts of first instance, appeal and cassation all sided with the bank, holding that the lender had full grounds to issue the loan since the borrower appeared to be entering SMS codes himself. The borrower then appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld his claim, saying the bank should take enhanced precautions when a loan is issued remotely and a request to transfer the funds to a third party follows immediately.

RIA Novosti reported that radio journalist Sergei Tutov, known as Martin Landers for the programme 'Back To the Universe', died on 20 October. A separate RIA Novosti report said the preliminary cause of death was heart failure. The report notes that the news came from a former colleague's post on a social network.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that late on 20 October air defence forces of the Russian Defence Ministry destroyed three drones heading toward Moscow. He added that emergency service specialists were working at the scene. The text does not specify where debris fell or any damage.

The Main Directorate of the Russian Emergencies Ministry for Crimea reported that a municipal-level emergency regime has been declared in Yalta because of the severe storm that hit Crimea in recent days. As of the morning of 20 October, more than 450 mm of precipitation had fallen on Mount Ai-Petri and more than 170 mm in Yalta; wind gusts reached 24 m/s in Alushta and Feodosia, 23 m/s on Mount Kara-Dag and 21 m/s in Yalta. The worst-hit location was the settlement of Koreiz, where residents of several houses were evacuated because of flooding: 400 mm of precipitation fell there in two days and streams of water mixed with pebbles and boulders rushed down from the mountains. More than 160 rescuers and utility workers were on site; two streets were cleared and temporary sandbag dams were built. Acting Yalta head Svetlana Shevchenko said a roof was being repaired in an apartment block on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street and flats were being flooded, with workers having stretched a waterproof barrier over the roof.

The Belgorod Region operational headquarters reported that on 20 October drone attacks injured a woman and an ambulance worker. In the village of Kazinka, Valuysky district, a woman suffered shrapnel wounds to the head and chest in an FPV drone attack. The text does not specify where or how the ambulance worker was injured.

Moscow's deputy mayor for transport and industry, Maxim Liksutov, said that in the first half of 2026 residents of the Moscow Technopolis special economic zone invested 157.5 billion roubles in microelectronics, an 11.7-fold increase over the previous half-year; since the SEZ was founded, private investment in the sector has reached 389.3 billion roubles, spent on construction, R&D, modernisation and capacity expansion. He said more than 30 residents supply the domestic market with electronic component base products, optical devices and equipment. Delivered projects include Russia's first serial production of optical transceivers using chip-on-board technology based on photonic integrated circuits (over 5.8 billion roubles invested), the country's first robotic line for serial production of liquid-crystal display modules (1.4 billion roubles), and production of charging modules for electric transport and power supply units for server equipment based on domestic components.

The board of directors of Gazprom approved revised versions of the 2026 investment programme and budget. Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee Famil Sadygov said the new budget version takes into account higher gas supplies to CIS countries and China compared with the original plan, and that the company expects strong financial results given prevailing world prices for hydrocarbons and refined products. He said the investment programme's financing limit was adjusted from 1,100 billion roubles to 1,096 billion roubles; the company will keep the planned pace of work on all key projects, and capital expenditure is fully covered by operating cash flow.

RIA Novosti reported that the Russian men's artistic gymnastics team won silver in the team all-around at the World Championships in Rotterdam and earned a licence for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The text does not give the final score or the team line-up.

According to the Russian Gazette, the date of the Russian national football team's next match has been set: on 12 November the side will play Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The text does not state the match status or other fixture details.

Vedomosti, citing RIA Novosti and Ozon’s press service, reports that Ozon plans to spend more than RUB10bn in 2026 on financial support for pickup-point (PVZ) owners; the text also says that over nine months the marketplace has already paid such businesses about RUB7.5mn — a figure orders of magnitude below the RUB10bn plan, a discrepancy the article does not explain. Any entrepreneur opening an Ozon PVZ can apply; the amount per point depends on the city and location (they affect rent and other agent costs) and over the whole period may reach RUB5.28mn. "We support partners during their first 12 months, and for some points support runs indefinitely," the company said. The paper recalls that on 19 October it emerged Ozon will charge PVZ owners an agency fee from 1 December, not exceeding 1% of the order reward, with RUB1 for points operating under a year; on 7 September Ozon said that over seven months a seller’s total spend on all Ozon services equalled 24.73% of the sale price, with 25,000 sellers paying under 15%. The text does not set out how the support offsets the incoming agency fee, nor any direct effect on seller rates.

Yandex said Yandex 360 has restored core functionality that had been limited after the drone attack on its data centre: the main capabilities of Mail, Disk, Documents, Calendar, Tracker and Telemost work, sending attachments larger than 1 MB has returned, Tracker notifications and Mail integration are back, and Telemost cloud meeting recording has resumed. The company told Interfax that viewing some "old" mail (from 6 months), creating drafts and scheduled sending remain unavailable, as do AI meeting summaries in Telemost, meeting analytics, some extra chat features and a number of capabilities in other services. According to its H1 2026 financials, Yandex 360 had a monthly audience of 117mn users (paid and free) and H1 revenue of RUB11.6bn. Earlier the same day, at 16:21, the company said access to core Direct tools had been restored: advertisers can again create and edit campaigns, register new accounts, change user settings and fully manage their account; these functions had been technically limited since 11 October because of the drone attacks. The company says that from 11 to 14 October, while the Direct interface was unavailable, previously launched campaigns kept running and spend stayed within advertisers’ own settings; results data may still display incompletely but is saved and will appear in reports as it is processed. The ad system handles 1.2mn requests per second and Direct is used by more than 630,000 advertisers. Between 8 and 11 October three Yandex data centres were hit — in Sasovo (Ryazan region), Kaluga and Vladimir; Sasovo and Vladimir stopped entirely and several modules in Kaluga were put out of action.

According to an Infoline review obtained by Vedomosti, almost half of cargo owners and rolling-stock operators expect the situation with shipments on the Russian Railways network to deteriorate in Q4 on a number of indicators compared with Q3. Loading — the monopoly’s core measure of economic activity — has been falling on the network for a fifth consecutive year: in September it was down 1.2% year on year to 90.3mn tonnes, and over nine months down 0.7% to 824.4mn tonnes. Over the past eighteen months shippers have repeatedly raised the deterioration of freight dispatching on the network, longer wagon idle times, repair difficulties and the subsequent return to service, which together reduce the throughput of the infrastructure. The main text is behind a paywall; the available part gives no breakdown by indicator and no assessment of China-bound traffic, so any conclusion about routes from China would be an inference and remains to be confirmed.

Maxim Shaskolsky, head of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, told reporters on the sidelines of the all-Russian tariff conference that the service has opened 70 fuel-market cases this year and issued 102 warnings, about two-thirds of which have been complied with. He also gave the current figures on fuel agreements: 44 regions and 125 agreements. Under government resolution No. 662, fuel agreements are concluded between regional authorities and local independent filling stations; the parties, together with FAS territorial bodies, approve a cap on fuel markups — as a rule no more than 15% for all types of oil products. Vedomosti’s separate piece the same day adds that on 30 September FAS reported 58 cases against oil companies and independent market participants and 91 warnings, with most violations among independent retail players; Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said earlier that price growth at filling stations of vertically integrated oil companies does not exceed inflation, and those companies account for about 80% of oil-product sales at Russian filling stations. Neither text gives a direct estimate of the impact on e-commerce fulfilment costs.

Ozon has proposed to the Russian government that operators of digital platforms be given the right to verify the accuracy of passport data that buyers enter when ordering goods from foreign sellers, in order to avoid problems with customs declaration; Interfax reports this citing a source familiar with the marketplace’s initiative. The company justifies the proposal by the growing number of cases where buyer-supplied data turns out to be inaccurate, creating risks at the declaration stage. As the text notes, amendments to the EAEU Customs Code take effect on 1 January 2027 under which the e-commerce goods declaration will be filed by the digital platform operator on the basis of buyer data (name, identity document, tax number); the buyer either enters these manually or transmits them by consent via the unified identification and authentication system, and manual entry often produces errors that lead to non-release of goods at customs. Ozon proposes giving platform operators the right to obtain, via the inter-agency electronic interaction system, the data needed to check the validity of the identity document of the recipient of e-commerce goods and to pass the verified data for filing the declaration; the rule is proposed for inclusion in the amendments to the platform economy law being drafted by the Ministry of Economic Development. According to the source, current law provides no mechanism for the platform operator to verify the accuracy of this data; the law "On Police" allows organisations to be given data from police databases, including through the inter-agency system, but no specific ground for platform operators has been established yet. Ozon believes the measure would reduce the burden on the customs service, improve payment collection, cut the number of refusals to register declarations and release goods, and shorten declaration processing time by removing the need for customs to query the interior ministry. The initiative is at the proposal stage; the text contains no response from the government or the customs service.

Vedomosti, citing data from YuKassa published in its Check Index Telegram channel, reports that this summer online turnover in the in-game purchase segment rose 31% year on year, the number of payments rose 45% and the average ticket fell 9% to RUB435. Between 1 and 15 September the number of purchases was up 46% year on year and turnover up 21%, with the average ticket down 17% to RUB413. The piece attributes the trend to demand shifting towards micro-payments for cosmetic in-game items, special currency and season passes that players buy as they go. "Video games are turning into a regular expense comparable to everyday small purchases," Check Index said. The article also cites a study by the Moscow Agency for Creative Industries published on 29 January: Russians could raise spending on video games to RUB544bn over ten years; in 2025 they spent over RUB173bn buying games, 70% of it in Moscow, while total spending on games, components and esports equipment reached RUB380bn. Named growth drivers include the development of local studios, import substitution of game technologies, new domestic hits and industry infrastructure projects. The text gives no share for marketplace channels in this segment.

The Bank of Russia official rate endpoint queried with date_req=21/10/2026 returns a group dated 21.10.2026: USD 82.8879, EUR 93.0417, CNY 12.3708 roubles (nominal value 1 for all three). Against the 20 October group in force on the coverage day (82.8504 / 93.2316 / 12.3869), the dollar is up 3.75 kopecks, the euro down 18.99 kopecks and the yuan down 1.61 kopecks. The endpoint returns only a date, with no publication time, so the item’s time is recorded as unknown Moscow time. The group was published on the coverage day and takes effect the next day, 21 October; it can be used to convert yuan-denominated purchase costs and rouble selling prices.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, speaking at the enlarged meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states in Dushanbe, said trade turnover between Russia and SCO countries exceeded RUB30 trillion in 2025 and grew a further 18% in the first half of 2026. He also pointed to structural changes in settlements: most payments are now made in national currencies, whereas five years ago only about half of transactions were conducted that way. He said the economic dynamics show a reliable margin of strength, allowing not only the expansion of foreign economic activity but also the launch of new mutually beneficial projects across industries. SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev said at the same meeting that aggregate mutual trade among all member states passed USD700bn in 2025. Lenta.ru notes the report comes from RIA Novosti. The text gives no breakdown for cross-border marketplace channels and no share for the yuan in settlements.

The Russian Association of Tour Operators, citing the service operator, says Letim — a payment service widely used by Russian citizens in Turkey — will cease operations on 30 November. The association recalls that the service was launched after Mir cards stopped being accepted in the country and became a substitute for some Russians: users could open electronic wallets in Turkish lira, top them up in roubles and link a card of the Turkish payment system to the wallet; the service peaked in 2025. According to the association, in summer 2026 Letim announced a temporary halt to issuing plastic cards and blocked cash withdrawal operations, but the wallet and cards have kept working. The company gave no reason for the closure; customers can spend their remaining balance before 30 November 2026 or transfer it to their Russian bank account, and withdrawals will remain available after the app shuts down, via support. The association believes this will not affect tourist flows: since the service launched Russians have gained other cashless payment options in Turkey, including the Faster Payments System, and most tourists still pay in cash, exchanging dollars and euros for lira. The text does not address any link to cross-border e-commerce collections or platform settlements, so any implication for sellers in the Russian market would be an inference and remains to be confirmed.

Analysts at Tochka Bank, having examined state registry data, told Vedomosti that between July and September Russia registered 267,900 sole proprietors (IP), 5.2% more than in the same period last year, accounting for 88.6% of all new business registrations. The IP share rose 4 percentage points over the year and 7.3 points over two years. The busiest month of Q3 was September, with 101,500 individuals registered (+15.4% year on year). Over the same quarter 34,400 legal entities were registered against 46,400 a year earlier, i.e. 26% fewer. Between July and September 167,760 terminations of IP activity were recorded; registrations exceeded that figure by about 1.6 times, a net gain of 100,147 registrations. The largest increase came in land and pipeline transport, 24.2% of the total gain, where the number of entrepreneurs rose 4.4% over the quarter. The number of active IPs grew over the three months in 84 regions and in all eight federal districts, fastest in the Urals (+2.32%), North-West (+2.31%) and Siberian (+2.2%) districts. The analysts note that for small projects the sole-proprietor form can be a convenient way to start, helped by the availability of online registration and services that simplify running a business. The text does not say how many of these sole proprietors trade on marketplaces.