Russian economy enters phase of controlled chaos — Ukrainian intel

Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service reported the information.

"The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has acknowledged the actual collapse of information disclosure standards: starting in 2027, financial organizations plan to be required to publish only anonymized data about ownership structure," the Foreign Intelligence Service noted.

After 2022, banks and insurance companies were allowed not to disclose information about owners and management, citing sanctions risks. The result: out of 352 credit organizations, only three banks currently disclose their ownership structure, which is less than 1%. The "compromise" proposed by the regulator involves formal "yes/no" answers regarding the presence of persons with significant influence, "unfriendly" non-residents, or problematic beneficiaries, with the form to be filled out by the Central Bank itself.

"This emphasizes that the market is unable to ensure even minimal transparency without manual control. The regulatory framework is promised to be adopted in 2026, and launched no earlier than April 2027," intelligence noted.

They added that in parallel, the state is moving in the opposite direction in other areas as well. A package of bills has been submitted to the State Duma that cancels regular income declarations for Russian civil servants. Deputies and senators called this "a step in the fight against corruption," which only increases the gap between rhetoric and actual control mechanisms.

Escalation of economic tension

Amid institutional degradation, economic tension is escalating, the Foreign Intelligence Service emphasizes.

"One-third of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in the Russian Federation do not rule out closing their businesses within six months. Banks have sharply reduced consumer lending: point-of-sale loans are approved for only every tenth customer, and the rejection rate in November reached 90%. At the same time, pawnshops received 9.6 billion rubles in net profit from January to September – 54% more than a year earlier, which is an indirect indicator of the decline in the population's solvency," the statement says.

Financial problems in the state sector

Intelligence noted that financial problems have also affected the state sector. In 2025, the volume of non-payments by state companies to businesses under public procurement contracts increased 2.7 times: from 200 cases worth 1.5 billion rubles in 2024 to 548 cases worth almost 4.03 billion rubles.

"Companies delay payments by one to three months, effectively borrowing at the expense of contractors. The reasons are falling revenues and high cost of loans. An additional signal of disorder was the cyber sphere: 73% of all data leaks in 2025 fell on the state sector specifically. The expectations of businesses and workers are also bleak: only 13% of Russians hope to receive an annual bonus," the Foreign Intelligence Service noted.

Collectively, these trends form a picture of a market that is increasingly moving away from global standards and becoming entrenched in a state of closure, distrust, and systemic chaos.

• Earlier, the Center for Countering Disinformation reported that in 2025, 56 regions of Russia formed a budget deficit totaling 169.2 billion rubles (about $2.14 billion).

• The Foreign Intelligence Service reported that the Russian Federation's economy is entering a phase of prolonged decline: companies are increasingly reporting financial difficulties, cutting costs, and postponing investments.