Central Bank of Russia
Russia's central bank; now the sole buyer of war-debt bonds after commercial banks pulled back.
Russia's central bank, now the effective backstop for government bond sales after commercial banks pulled back, according to Sberbank's finance chief on 31 July 2026.
Last refreshed: 3 August 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Has Russia's central bank become the last buyer standing for the government's war debt?
Timeline for Central Bank of Russia
Injected RUB 2.3 trillion into banks since January
Russia-Ukraine War 2026: Banks stopped buying Russia's war debtBackground
The Central Bank of Russia is the country's monetary authority, responsible for interest rates, bank supervision and liquidity provision to the commercial banking sector.
It became that buyer of last resort on 31 July 2026, the day Sberbank's finance chief confirmed commercial lenders had no spare capacity left for state paper . The central bank had already pumped RUB 2.3 trillion into the banking system since January 2026, liquidity that Left lenders with enough for customer loans but nothing left over for bond purchases .
Economist Nikolai Korzhenevsky has characterised this lending as effectively a monetisation of the deficit; the Kremlin describes the same activity as standard monetary policy rather than a war-financing backstop.