WB Bank extends credit holidays by another month for Wildberries sell…

Kommersant reports that in his list of instructions on the social gasification programme Vladimir Putin ordered the government to allocate a further 1.2 billion roubles in subsidies for citizens to buy gas equipment; the subsidies cover the purchase of equipment and the work needed to connect plots to gas distribution networks, and the payments must be arranged before 1 November 2026. Putin also instructed the government to report twice a year on the availability of gas equipment to Russians, with the first report due by 15 December, and told the antimonopoly service and regional authorities to prevent unjustified price growth for gas, equipment and installation services.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order terminating Dmitry Grigorenko's mandate as chairman of the supervisory board of the state development corporation VEB.RF; the document was published on the official legal information portal. The decision followed President Vladimir Putin's decree of 22 October relieving Grigorenko of the post of deputy prime minister. According to Kommersant, Sberbank's supervisory board will consider appointing Grigorenko deputy chairman of its management board at a meeting on 10 November 2026. Compared with the 22 October report on his expected appointment at Sberbank, what is new is that the order terminating his mandate has been signed and published.

The Justice Ministry published on its website a registry of persons subject to temporary restrictive measures, listing 12 people, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yevgeny Chichvarkin, Boris Zimin, Leonid Gozman and Yekaterina Shulman, all designated foreign agents and living abroad, as well as foreign-agent-designated Anastasia Burakova, Anastasia Shevchenko, Mark Feygin, Michael Nacke, Vladimir Milov, Alexei Nesterenko and former municipal deputy Yelena Kotenochkina. The ministry recalled that Federal Law No. 284-FZ, in force since 4 August, applies temporary measures where three conditions coincide: a court ruling in a criminal or administrative case has entered into force, the person evades compliance, and the person is abroad. Each decision can be appealed in court, the measures are temporary and can be lifted on statutory grounds, and close relatives in Russia who depended on the person's income and are left without means will receive a monthly allowance decided by a special interdepartmental commission and paid from frozen funds and a special rouble account.

According to the Russian Defence Ministry, 270 Russian servicemen were returned from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime, and Moscow handed over 270 Ukrainian prisoners of war in return. The United Arab Emirates provided humanitarian mediation. The returned Russian servicemen are currently in Belarus, where ombudsman Yana Lantratova is working with them; they will later be taken to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation at Defence Ministry medical facilities. The previous exchange took place on 19 August on a 103-for-103 basis.

A bill published on the US Congress website would revoke General Licence No. 135 permitting transactions involving Russian diesel fuel and bar similar authorisations in future. Its author, Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, proposes stripping the US Treasury of the ability to issue such licences through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The report notes that earlier this month US lawmakers introduced another bill aimed at blocking the diesel deal; on 9 October Donald Trump announced an agreement with Vladimir Putin on Russian diesel entering world markets, and the US Treasury exempted Russian diesel supplies from sanctions until April 2027.

Dmitry Peskov told reporters on 23 October that trilateral talks between Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi are scheduled for the first half of November. The report notes that Vladimir Putin said a day earlier, in talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, that Russia is ready to resume trilateral negotiations around 10 November; according to presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, the delegation may include military officials and presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, with the final composition to be decided by the president; the talks are expected to address security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.

Following its board meeting on 23 October, the Bank of Russia kept the key rate at 14% per annum for a second consecutive time, as in September. In its press release the regulator said the economy is growing at a moderate pace in the second half of the year, current price pressure remains elevated and inflation expectations are high, while sustainable price growth is not declining and stands in a 5-6% annualised range, mainly due to a temporary reduction in production capacity in some industries; a restrained growth of aggregate demand is needed for sustainable inflation to resume falling. The regulator raised its baseline forecast for the average 2027 key rate from 10.5-12.5% to 12.5-13.5%, raised its 2026 inflation forecast range to 6-7% and expects annual inflation to return to the 4% target in 2027. Household inflation expectations fell to 13.2% in October from 14.2% in September. The next rate meeting is scheduled for 18 December 2026.

The Bank of Russia set official rates for the weekend and Monday 26 October at 80.53 roubles per dollar, 90.24 roubles per euro and 12.05 roubles per yuan; the dollar fell by 58.74 kopecks, the euro by 89.35 kopecks and the yuan by 9.03 kopecks. The official dollar rate was last below 81 roubles on 6 August 2026. For Friday 23 October the rates were 81.12 roubles per dollar, 91.14 per euro and 12.15 per yuan. The report notes the rouble is supported by the central bank's pause in cutting the key rate and, in the short term, by the approach of tax payments due by 28 October and dividend payouts by large companies.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters that three tankers carrying diesel from Russia are already heading toward the Atlantic east coast, that the main volumes may come from Rosneft resources, and that the Russian Direct Investment Fund provided significant support. He said that under previously announced arrangements to saturate the global diesel market, Russia will supply additional diesel to world markets and to the United States; the diesel export ban has been eased and companies may export 500,000 tonnes in October, a volume calculated on the basis of fully supplying the domestic market, and Russia's domestic diesel market is supplied.

The State Duma budget and tax committee recommended adopting in the first reading government bill No. 618-9 on a windfall tax. Under the draft, the tax equals the volume of extracted mineral resource multiplied by the amount by which its average price in 2026, 2027 and 2028 exceeds the average price for 2025; for 2027 and 2028 the base price is indexed by coefficients of 1.1 and 1.21 respectively, and if the price increase is less than 10% no tax is due. The general rate is 30%, and 20% for gold. The total amount of the new tax is capped at 15% of revenue per mineral resource after deducting the accrued mineral extraction tax, payable in 2027-2029 no later than 28 April each year, with instalments allowed. If adopted, the law would take effect on 1 January 2027; the budget explanatory note expects annual revenues of about 200 billion roubles.

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education posted on Friday, on the federal portal of draft normative acts, a draft order fixing minimum Unified State Exam scores for admission to universities under its jurisdiction for the 2027/28 academic year. Under the document, Russian, specialised mathematics, history, a foreign language, literature, biology, geography and chemistry require at least 40 points, physics 41, social studies 45 and computer science 46. The scores also apply to targeted admissions. The same minimum scores applied for the 2026/2027 admission campaign.

The State Duma budget and tax committee recommended adopting in the first reading a government bill setting the minimum wage at 28,935 roubles per month from 1 January 2027 and suspending for three years the linkage of the minimum wage to the median wage. In 2026 the minimum wage is 27,093 roubles, meaning a 6.8% indexation for 2027. From 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2029 inclusive, the rules under which the minimum wage is set taking into account the previous year's median wage are suspended; currently the ratio of minimum wage to median wage may not be below 48%. According to the explanatory note, the minimum wage would be set on the basis of projected growth in average monthly accrued wages, while retaining the requirements that it may not fall below the subsistence minimum for the working-age population or below the current year's minimum wage. The bill also tightens resettlement rules for unsafe housing: an owner may receive replacement housing only once and only if they have no other habitable housing on the date the building is declared unsafe; otherwise only monetary compensation is provided.

In a video address to the laureates and guests of the third Pushkin Card award ceremony, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said this educational programme has been running for five years and that more than 13 million young Russians aged 14 to 22 receive 5,000 roubles a year from the state to attend plays, concerts, museums, exhibitions, excursions and many other events. He noted that the number of cultural events available to card holders is growing every year, and that the culture sector has received more than 58 billion roubles in additional funding as a result.

Orel region governor Andrei Klychkov said a plant in the Sovetsky district of Orel came under a rocket strike in the evening; eight people were taken to or sought medical care, some underwent surgery, but most injuries are minor - shrapnel wounds or injuries sustained when structures collapsed. A large fire broke out at the plant and was fully extinguished, preparations began for clearing debris, and six requests were received regarding blown-out windows. The governor said the strike came in the evening as workers were returning home after their shift, and said figures abroad were circulating claims about a "chemical effect" from the fire, urging people to rely on official information.

The Emergencies Ministry press service said that while a fire was being extinguished at a production building at 37 Kosyakova Street in Ivanovo, where mattresses are made, structures collapsed: five firefighters were injured, one of them fatally, and the fire covered 4,800 square metres. Firefighting is hampered by the building's complex layout; a high fire load and the complete absence of automatic fire protection systems aided the spread of fire and smoke. It was reported earlier that the fire had been localised over 900 square metres.

Bryansk region governor Yegor Kovalchuk said that near the settlement of Khalturino in Klintsovsky district a drone struck a bus travelling the Moscow-Novozybkov route: one woman was killed and three other people were injured. The governor offered condolences to the relatives of the deceased and said medics are providing all necessary assistance. The report also notes that on 22 October, a drone attack on a truck in the Zhukovsky district injured a Belarusian citizen.

Yandex Cloud said that after attacks on Yandex data centres it has restored access to 90.47% of the data stored on the platform; part of the data and related services were moved to a new location that went live on 23 October, and access to that data will be opened in stages in the coming days. The company said core platform capabilities are already available to customers, while the team restores other services and the remaining data. Between 8 and 11 October, drone attacks damaged three Yandex data centres - in Sasovo in Ryazan region, Kaluga and Vladimir; operations at Sasovo and Vladimir were completely halted and several modules in Kaluga were knocked out, causing disruptions to Yandex services and other Russian internet resources.

According to the company's financial statements, PhosAgro's net profit attributable to shareholders in January-September fell threefold to 31.3 billion roubles from 95.7 billion roubles in the same period last year. Revenue was almost unchanged, rising nearly 1% to 446 billion roubles. Gross profit fell 27% to 133 billion roubles, pre-tax profit fell almost threefold to 42.18 billion roubles, and operating profit declined 33.2% from 115.3 billion to 77.1 billion roubles.

At the world artistic gymnastics championships in Rotterdam, Russian gymnast Lyudmila Roshchina won silver in the individual all-around with 55.199 points. American Skye Blakely took first place with 55.733 - according to the outlet, her first individual medal in four world championship appearances - and China's Ke Qin-qin took bronze with 55.032. The championships run from 17 to 25 October and serve as a qualifying event for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

According to the website of United World Wrestling (UWW), Mikhail Mamiashvili, president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, was not re-elected to the organisation's bureau. The UWW electoral congress was held in Astana on Friday. The report notes that Mamiashvili, 1988 Olympic champion and three-time Greco-Roman world champion, headed the federation from 1997 as acting president after the death of federation head Ivan Yarygin, was elected president in 2000 and has been re-elected several times since. It also says that in May UWW announced the admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competitions without restrictions in all age categories.

According to Wildberries' press service, WB Bank and its affiliated microfinance company extended credit holidays for another month for sellers whose goods were damaged in drone attacks on the company's logistics centres; the next payment on loans and borrowings must be made on 23 November. No application or additional documents are required from sellers to extend the holidays — the relevant information already appears in their personal accounts. The credit holidays were introduced in July 2026, initially suspending principal payments and interest accrual for three months.

Yandex Cloud reported that following attacks on its data centres it has restored access to 90.47% of the data stored on the platform. Part of the data and the associated services were moved to a new site that went live on 23 October, with access to be opened gradually in the coming days. Core platform capabilities are already available to customers, while teams continue restoring other services and the remaining data. Between 8 and 11 October, three Yandex data centres were hit — in Sasovo (Ryazan region), Kaluga and Vladimir. Compared with the 22 October update on Yandex Pay services, this item adds the share of restored cloud data and the launch of the new site.

Head of the Federal Customs Service Valery Pikalev said at an expanded board meeting marking the service’s 35th anniversary that in January–September 2026 customs transferred about 5 trillion roubles to the federal budget, almost 15% more than in the same period of 2025. The target for Q3 was met at 103.4%, and for September at 110.1%. For the whole of 2025, the service transferred 5,911 billion roubles, meeting its forecast target by more than 99%. The figures were published by the FCS press service.

According to two market sources cited by Kommersant, the government may decide to raise the duty on spirits imported from unfriendly countries from the current €3 to €5 per litre, with a resolution possible in November 2026. One source does not rule out that the new duty takes effect immediately rather than from January 2027, as other market participants expect. Since September 2024 Russia has applied a duty on alcohol imports from unfriendly countries of 20% of customs value but not less than €3 per litre. Ruslan Bragin of wine trader Fort estimates wholesale prices would rise by roughly 70–100 roubles per bottle at the current exchange rate; Andrey Moskovsky of the Alkopro guild puts the increase for a 0.7-litre bottle in the mass segment at just over 200 roubles. The Finance Ministry did not respond to press enquiries.

Reporting calculations by the Association of E-commerce Market Participants, RBC said most order pickup points would become loss-making if switched to property tax assessed on cadastral value, as average tax payments could exceed the average profit of such businesses.

Kommersant, citing RBC, reported that the national computer incident coordination centre instructed operators of critical information infrastructure to restrict access to their websites because of PHP vulnerabilities. The two critical flaws carry the maximum severity score of 9.2 out of 10 and allow attackers to remotely gain control of websites and extract data. The directive requires upgrading PHP to a patched version and scanning servers with antivirus software; where a fast upgrade is impossible, owners must restrict external access to the vulnerable web servers or take them offline entirely. According to the report, more than 90% of Russian-language websites run on PHP (69.3% worldwide), putting tens to hundreds of thousands of resources at risk. The named targets are government bodies and financial, energy, transport, healthcare and other organisations; e-commerce platforms are not mentioned.

Citing Infoline data, Kommersant reported that the DIY segment across B2B and B2C contracted 4.7% year on year in January–June 2026 to 3.9 trillion roubles, with B2C including home and garden goods down 1.3% to 2.2 trillion roubles. Sales of the ten largest chains fell 2% to 521.1 billion roubles: Dom Lenta (formerly the OBI network) down 24.3%, Maksidom down 9.6%, Petrovich and Lemana Pro down 3.1% and 1% respectively. The only specialised retailer to grow was Vseinstrumenti.ru, with turnover up 3.2% to 89.6 billion roubles; investor relations director Alexey Lukyanov expects full-year sales growth of about 5%. Lemana Pro commercial director Natalia Novikova cites the high cost of credit as the main constraint and says consumers are opting for targeted refreshes and comparing prices more carefully. Mikhail Burmistrov of Infoline Analytics expects full-year DIY market growth of 2% to 4.6 trillion roubles in 2026, with volumes down more than 5%.

Russia’s Agriculture Ministry told Vedomosti it supports a pilot for online retail sales of Russian wine, arguing it would create additional mechanisms to promote small wineries’ products and make them more competitive. The government submitted the bill to the State Duma in 2023, but lawmakers only resumed work on it in 2026. Under the draft, the pilot would run in Moscow and the Moscow region: buyers could order wine made from Russian-grown grapes (including fortified and sparkling) on a dedicated Russian Post website. The wine would be stored in Russian Post warehouses and delivered to the address or a post office no earlier than 24 hours after order confirmation; age would be verified through the unified identification and authentication system or an identity document, and the sale refused if adulthood cannot be confirmed. In a separate same-day report, Boris Titov, the main owner of the Abrau-Durso group, said the bill could go to its first reading shortly and has government backing.

Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said at the post-meeting press conference that the regulator will launch a subscription service on the digital rouble platform by the end of November and plans to test offline digital rouble payments in 2027, along with several business-oriented services next year. She said 270,000 digital rouble accounts had been opened so far, of which 15,000 belong to legal entities and sole proprietors. Thirty-six banks have joined the platform, part of them mandatorily under the law and another 15 voluntarily. Since 1 September, the largest banks and their merchant clients with prior-year revenue above 120 million roubles must offer digital currency operations; for universal-licence lenders and merchants with annual revenue above 30 million roubles the obligation starts on 1 September 2027, and for basic-licence banks and merchants with revenue of 20–30 million roubles on 1 September 2028.

The Bank of Russia’s official rates for 24 October 2026 are 80.5381 roubles per US dollar, 90.2429 per euro and 12.0557 per yuan. Compared with the rates in force on the coverage day (23 October: 81.1255 / 91.1364 / 12.1460), they are 58.74, 89.35 and 9.03 kopecks lower respectively. They were published on the coverage day and take effect on 24 October; the XML interface does not return a publication time.

The Bank of Russia board decided on 23 October to keep the key rate at 14.00% and updated its medium-term forecast at the same time: the 2027 average key rate forecast was raised to 12.5–13.5% from 10.5–12.5%, the 2028 path to 9–10% from 8–9%, while 2029 stays at 7.5–8.5%, a range the regulator treats as neutral. The 2026 average was revised to 14.6% from 14.5–14.6%. The regulator notes that the average key rate was 14.7% between 1 January and 25 October 2026, so an average of 14.0% from 26 October to year-end leaves room for either a hold or a change at the December meeting. The next rate-setting board meeting is scheduled for 18 December.

Governor Elvira Nabiullina said in her statement that the effects of temporary capacity losses in certain industries may prove more persistent than expected, so a longer period of moderately tight monetary conditions will be needed for inflation to return to 4% next year. According to the same-day press release: seasonally adjusted current price growth averaged 8.0% annualised in Q3 after 4.8% in Q2; core inflation rose to 6.2% from 4.5% in the previous quarter; annual inflation was 6.8% as of 19 October and is expected at 7.1–7.6% for the year. The regulator also revised its GDP growth estimate for this year to 0.5–1.0% and noted that the gap between wage growth and labour productivity remains substantial.

Citing the federal Agroexport centre, Vedomosti reported that from the start of 2026 to mid-October Russia shipped almost 9 million tonnes of agri-food products to China worth about $7.8bn, already exceeding the full-year 2025 figure of about $7.7bn and setting a record. Frozen fish generated the largest revenue, followed by rapeseed oil, crustaceans, soybeans and pulses. The paper also notes that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on 21 October that Russian–Chinese agri-food trade grew by more than a third year on year in the first nine months of 2026.