Russians pull billions from banks fearing Kremlin will seize savings for war
Russia's central bank reported that billions of roubles have been withdrawn from banks each month, as Russians pull out cash amid fears of the Kremlin seizing their savings to fund the war in Ukraine amid a deteriorating economy.
Russians withdrew around €24.4 billion from the country's banking system in the first seven months of this year, as Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and logistics infrastructure deepened the economic crisis, and fear spread that the Kremlin could move to freeze or nationalise private deposits to fund its war in Ukraine.
Data from the Banks.ru financial marketplace show that demand for cash began rising in early March and has continued growing, with around 300 billion roubles (€3.05 billion) leaving accounts every month.
Five of Russia's seven largest banks have recorded net outflows of individuals' deposits.
Gazprombank has been the most affected, losing 299.5 billion roubles (€3.04bn) — 10.8% of its total deposits — over four months. Rosselkhozbank shed 270.5 billion roubles (€2.75bn), a fall of more than 15%.
Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest private lender, lost 179.4 billion roubles (€1.82bn) or 5.6% of deposits. Sovcombank and VTB recorded further outflows of 81.7 billion roubles (€830m) and 20.4 billion roubles (€207m) respectively.
Sberbank initially held steady, but its depositors have also turned to cash: 211.6 billion roubles (€2.15bn) left in June, followed by a further 31.8 billion roubles (€323m) in July. T-Bank was the exception, recording an increase of 193 billion roubles (€1.96bn) in deposit volume.
The total amount of cash in circulation rose by 643.4 billion roubles (€6.53bn) in July alone, the largest monthly increase since the start of the year, according to the Bank of Russia. In the first half of August, a further 300 billion roubles were withdrawn.
Why Russians are pulling their money
The withdrawal is being driven by two overlapping fears: that Ukrainian drone strikes could destabilise the financial system, and that the Russian government might move to seize or freeze deposits to cover mounting war costs.
The second scare is grounded in recent events. Russian prosecutors transferred approximately $51.5 billion (€44.3bn) in private assets to state control last year, according to the Washington Post.
In June, authorities seized around $7.6 billion (€6.5bn) in assets linked to billionaire Vadim Moshkovich, founder of the agricultural holding company Rusagro.
Putin has simultaneously been extracting what officials describe as voluntary "donations" from oligarchs, with hundreds of billions of roubles flowing into the federal budget by mid-August, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported.
Russian banks have spent years extending government-directed loans to defence industries at the Kremlin's instruction.
Large companies are also moving money beyond the reach of domestic regulators, with more than $9.4 billion flowing out of Russia's banking system in the second quarter of 2026 alone, according to central bank data.
In 2022, Russians also pulled money from banks in significant quantities following the invasion and the initial wave of Western sanctions.
The central bank temporarily raised interest rates to 20% and imposed capital controls to stabilise the system. Those controls were later lifted and the rush subsided, but the current trend is larger and longer in scale.
Russia's broader economic position is deteriorating. GDP expanded just 0.3% in the first half of 2026, compared with 1.2% in the same period last year, according to the Kremlin's own data, which cannot be independently verified.
Andrei Klepach, chief economist at the state development corporation VEB, was dismissed over the weekend after publicly questioning whether Russia could win a prolonged war.
"We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We're under the illusion that everything will collapse. It hasn't, and it won't. Our costs are mounting," he said at a Moscow Exchange economic forum in May.
Anxiety in Russia has climbed back to the level it reached when Vladimir Putin ordered mobilisation four years ago.
Some 57% of Russians describe the situation in their country as tense and a further 13% call it critical or explosive - 70% between them, the highest since September 2022. Only 19% say things are calm and 7% call them prosperous, according to the July survey published by the Levada Centre, Russia's last major independent pollster, on August 14. It questioned 1,612 people across 137 towns and villages in 50 regions between July 21 and 28.
Asked what worries them, respondents who gave a negative answer named the war, mobilisation and the deaths of people first, at 45%. Drone attacks, shelling and explosions inside Russia came second at 21% - a category that did not meaningfully exist in the 2022 readings this figure is being compared with, and the clearest measure yet of how far Ukraine's deep-strike campaign has travelled into Russian domestic sentiment.
Fear for themselves, their children and the future followed at 18%, instability at 10%, and the economic crisis and rising prices at 9%. Petrol shortages and queues at filling stations - a summer-long irritation that has been biting into the real economy since the agricultural peak season - were named by 7%, as were power, internet and mobile outages by 6%, alongside distrust of the authorities, also on 6%.
Those numbers describe the war arriving at home rather than a country turning against it. Levada's own breakdown of the minority who call the situation good is telling in the same way: 11% of them give as their reason that there are no protests, strikes or disturbances, and 9% that there is no fighting on Russian soil.
The reading lands with Russia's war economy grinding towards a halt despite an oil windfall, and a month before regional elections in September that the Kremlin is managing carefully.
Nothing in the survey suggests that 70% is about to do anything. It does suggest that the number of Russians who still describe the war as something happening somewhere else is shrinking.
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