On 24 August Minfin said it had submitted draft decrees to the government to support businesses hit by drone attacks on RVB group facilities, along with separate measures for the company itself. Legal entities and sole traders whose losses exceed 5% of annual income gain the right to defer tax payments by a year.
What exactly is deferred
Verbatim from the release:
“Affected businesses are entitled to extend by 12 months the payment deadlines for VAT (other than VAT paid on goods imported into Russia), profit tax, tax under the simplified and automated simplified regimes, social contributions and advance payments on those taxes, falling due in August 2026 – July 2027.”
The quote leaves out several details. Deferred amounts are then paid in equal instalments over a year. For the RVB group itself, the same taxes due between July 2026 and June 2027 are deferred to 28 July 2027. Until the end of the year, tax audits and checks on social-contribution calculations are suspended for both categories, and the deadlines for issuing payment demands and collection decisions are extended by six months.
Why this is a budget story, not a business-relief story
This is the first decision that turns war damage inside Russia directly into a shortfall in this year's revenue, rather than only into spending on reconstruction.
The taxes being deferred matter. Over January to July 2026, domestic VAT brought in 7,269.1 bn roubles — 32.9% of all federal budget revenue and its largest single line. Profit tax added 2,437.6 bn. Together with social contributions, that is the core of the non-oil revenue base Minfin has been using to cover the fall in oil and gas revenue.
One detail in the quote deserves attention: VAT on imported goods is excluded from the deferral. Of everything the measure covers, it is the part that keeps arriving whether or not the damaged warehouses run — and it is the part the state kept. Over seven months it brought in 2,522.1 bn.
Suspending audits while extending the collection deadlines means that at this stage the budget will not collect even the arrears it has already assessed.
What this changes in our model
Nothing yet, and that is worth saying plainly. Our deficit indicator reads a rolling year: through July the twelve-month deficit was 7,460 bn roubles, 3.3% of GDP against a registered trouble line of 10%, and the indicator scores 65 out of 100 — the healthiest of the eight.
The deferral moves receipts back by a year or more for ordinary firms; RVB's later payments move by only weeks to reach 28 July 2027, and are then spread over the following year. Either way Minfin named neither the cost of the decision nor the number of taxpayers it will cover. So this is a mechanism, not a measured change: it will show up month by month, when those payments do not arrive. The current state of all eight is on the monitor.
What we do not know
The cost to the budget. The number of affected taxpayers. The procedure for confirming “damage exceeding 5% of annual income” — the texts of the decrees themselves are not published, only the press release. Whether the damage itself will be compensated separately. And the main thing: whether this is one case or a template to be applied to other sectors that have been hit — the question of oil refining remains open.