In the first two weeks of August, Russian depositors withdrew 286.4 billion rubles ($3.4 billion) from the banking system, The Washington Post reported, citing Central Bank data. In July, withdrawals totaled 643.4 billion rubles, and in June about 450 billion rubles. Since the start of the year, cash in circulation has grown by about 2.45 trillion rubles.
This exceeds the entire 2022 increase, when cash in circulation rose by about 2.3 trillion rubles following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sberbank's chief financial officer, Taras Skvortsov, forecasts that by the end of 2026 the figure could rise by 3.8 trillion rubles — nearly double the 2022 result.
The Washington Post's sources — a former senior official in the government's financial bloc, former Central Bank adviser Alexandra Prokopenko, and others — attribute the depositor flight to Ukrainian drone strikes and fears of "nationalization of deposits." "Drones are flying. Everything is burning. Nervousness is growing. And people may be guided by the common wisdom that cash should be kept under the mattress, not in banks from which it may not be returned," the former official told the newspaper. Some banks were unprepared for the outflow and had invested available funds in other assets, he added.
Prokopenko considers deposit nationalization unlikely but does not rule out limits on cash withdrawals. The outflow has already undermined government debt placements: in July, the Finance Ministry had to cancel planned OFZ auctions, even though borrowing has become the main way to cover the budget deficit, which reached 6.46 trillion rubles in January–July against a full-year plan of 3.8 trillion rubles. Craig Kennedy, a former vice president of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's investment arm and a research associate at Harvard's Davis Center, called the situation a sign of "imperial overstretch."
At the same time, large businesses fearing confiscation are moving money abroad: in the second quarter, more than $9.4 billion left the country. According to the Russian prosecutor general's office, assets worth $51.5 billion were seized in favor of the state last year alone; in June, the state took assets worth $7.6 billion linked to Ros Agro founder Vadim Moshkovich. The main channel for moving funds, according to the newspaper's sources, has been opening brokerage accounts in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia.
"If the government needs money, Putin will simply seize assets. He doesn't care. I think that's where this is heading," a person close to a Russian billionaire told The Washington Post. "This is not a place where you want to do business. If there's an opportunity to move money out, you do it," he added. A Moscow businessman confirmed to the newspaper that everyone who can is trying to move capital out, but it is becoming increasingly difficult.