Russians are withdrawing billions from banks amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks and growing concerns that the authorities may confiscate deposits for the needs of the war with Ukraine, writes the “Washington Post“, quoted by BTA.
The withdrawal of billions of rubles is creating problems with the liquidity of banks and undermining the Kremlin's ability to issue bonds to finance military operations in Ukraine.
According to data from the Russian Central Bank, funds equivalent to nearly $3.4 billion (286.4 billion rubles) were withdrawn in the first two weeks of August, after $7.3 billion was withdrawn in July and over $4.5 billion in June.
The total amount of funds withdrawn this year could exceed almost double the amount withdrawn in the first year of the invasion of Ukraine, according to Taras Skvortsov, a senior manager at “Sberbank“ – Russia's largest retail bank.
The withdrawals are causing liquidity problems, overwhelming a financial sector already under pressure from rising levels of bad debt stemming from a government-sponsored credit boom to boost military production, Skvortsov and a former senior Russian financial official said.
According to Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser to the Russian Central Bank, the withdrawals reflect growing fear in Russian society.
"This means that people do not trust the Russian banking system or the Russian financial system," Prokopenko said. “All this is a consequence of the fear that the government might do something about the banking system, that it might nationalize deposits.“
According to her, such a nationalization is unlikely, but the financial expert does not rule out the possibility that the authorities will impose restrictions on withdrawals.
The total amount withdrawn from Russian banks this year already exceeds the $24.7 billion (2 trillion rubles) withdrawn in the first year after the invasion in February 2022.
In the first two weeks of the invasion, $23 billion flowed from the system, and banks seemed threatened until the government stopped the outflow of funds by imposing strict capital controls and sharply raising interest rates.
Now large companies are also trying to move their money beyond the reach of Russian regulators, as concerns about potential asset seizures grow. This further exacerbates the problems, says the former official, quoted by the “Washington Post“.
A total of more than $9.4 billion was transferred out of Russia in the second quarter of 2026, according to Central Bank data.
“Every month there is a large outflow. "If the trend continues, things will not improve," Skvortsov told Russian radio station RBC Radio.
The withdrawal of funds is already undermining the Russian government's efforts to raise funds to finance the war by issuing government bonds.
Last month, the Finance Ministry was forced to cancel planned bond issues, despite becoming increasingly dependent on them as a means of plugging a huge budget deficit as military spending continues to rise while the economy stagnates.
Skvortsov told RBC Radio that banks' liquidity problems meant many could not allocate funds to buy government bonds.
In a sign of how sensitive the issue is becoming for the Kremlin, the chief economist at VEB, one of the country's largest state-owned banks, Andrey Klepach was fired from his post last weekend after commenting that Russia could not win a grueling war against Ukraine while Kiev enjoyed Western support, the Washington Post added.