Russian Debt Surge Leaves Banks Exposed as 636,000 People Went Bankrupt in 2025

2 articles · Updated · The Moscow Times · Jul 17

Corporate debt in Russia has jumped 93% since 2021 and household debt 57%, leaving banks more exposed as high interest rates, slower growth and tax hikes make repayment harder.
Bankruptcy strain is already showing: 636,000 Russians declared bankruptcy in 2025, up 30% year on year, while first-quarter 2026 personal bankruptcies rose 13.7% to 137,500.
Corporate stress is also building, with 3,550 companies declared bankrupt in the first half of 2026 and 2,970 entering insolvency proceedings, up 20.9%; microenterprises and smaller firms appear hardest hit.
Officially, bad corporate loans are about 4% of lending, but a European intelligence report and a Moscow think tank put doubtful or problem assets near 10%, saying restructurings are masking deterioration.
That 10% would equal roughly 12 trillion rubles in troubled loans, raising the prospect of Kremlin support for banks and making tougher sanctions on energy exports a bigger long-term threat.