Russians withdrew 286.4 billion rubles, or nearly $3.4 billion, from domestic banks in the first two weeks of August amid growing fears that deposits could be seized to finance the war in Ukraine.
The Washington Post reported the figures based on data from the Central Bank of Russia. The August flight of capital follows monthly bank withdrawals of $7.3 billion in July and more than $4.5 billion in June.
Taras Skvortsov, a senior official at Sberbank, Russia's largest state-owned lender, stated that total bank withdrawals this year could reach almost double the amount taken out in 2022, during the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when total withdrawals exceeded $24.7 billion.
Skvortsov said the money drain is causing liquidity problems and overburdening the financial sector, which is already struggling with rising debt following a government credit expansion to boost military production.
Rising public anxiety and bank liquidity pressure
A former Russian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said drone attacks and fires have heightened public anxiety across the country. The former official said citizens feel a growing need to keep physical cash under their pillows rather than in bank accounts from which it might never be returned.
The former official added that the outflow has created serious problems for several banks that had invested their cash into other assets and are now facing monthly withdrawals of half a trillion rubles.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser at the Central Bank of Russia, said the authorities might introduce official restrictions on money withdrawals as the crisis deepens.
The continuous withdrawal of funds has already disrupted plans by the Russian government to raise capital for military spending through the issuance of state bonds.
Fears of corporate asset seizures
Concerns are also rising that the Kremlin could confiscate the earnings of large businesses to fund ongoing military operations. An associate of a Russian billionaire said that if the government needs money, Russian President Vladimir Putin will simply seize assets without hesitation.
In August, Russian state development corporation VEB.RF dismissed its chief economist, Andrey Klepach. The dismissal followed media reports highlighting his public statements regarding economic problems in Russia and the outlook for the war.
Warnings over economic exhaustion and budget deficits
On August 6, financial news agency Bloomberg described the structural processes in the Russian economy as a military version of Dutch disease, an economic term describing distortion caused by rapid growth in a single sector.
In June 2026, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an international research institute based in Germany, stated that the Russian economy was showing clear signs of exhaustion.
According to Bloomberg, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the Central Bank of Russia both warned Putin that escalating military spending threatens a dangerous expansion of the national budget deficit.
