The Lifeblood of russia’s Economy Is on the Verge of Collapse

In 2025, around 1,700 bank branches closed in the rf, which is 3.6 times more than the year before. At the beginning of this year, the network of bank branches in russia had decreased to 22,300, compared to 30,000 seven years ago. The sector, which had previously been expanding, is now rapidly shrinking.

The most significant downsizing was carried out by sberbank of russia, which closed more than 900 branches, twice as many as in 2024. Unprofitable branches in small towns are the first to be affected by the cuts. These branches often remained key infrastructure hubs for the provinces, so their closure exacerbates the degradation of the local economy and access to financial services.

Bank management explains the cuts by digitalization and the transfer of staff to remote working formats. At the same time, closures of a comparable scale were last recorded in the “COVID-19” year 2021, when quarantine restrictions severely limited the work of banks with the population. The current wave is taking place without global lockdowns, which contradicts the version of technological breakthrough as the main factor.

An additional indicator of structural problems was the 73% increase in hidden unemployment in 2025. Analysts point out that in the third quarter of last year, the pace of business closures and working time reductions accelerated sharply in the rf. The crisis in the coal industry hit kuzbass particularly hard: mines cut wages tenfold, and in some areas, miners now receive 500 rubles per month instead of the previous 300,000.