Decree № 1087, signed on 27 August and published the next day, exempts gas consumers in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions from late-payment penalties. The exemption runs retroactively from 9 August 2024 until the last special regime in the region ends. The decree provides no compensation for suppliers: the state has legalized non-payment and moved the loss onto their books.
What exactly is switched off
Penalties for late or incomplete payment for gas and its transport are waived throughout the supply chain: for ordinary consumers, housing associations and housing co-operatives, and management and heat-supply companies — parts 2, 3 and 4 of article 25 of the gas-supply law, respectively. Gas supply must resume whether or not the debtor has paid the cost of disconnection and reconnection. Deadlines under the connection rules are suspended, and parts of the pricing regulation do not apply. Two provisions do the work:
“If payment for gas and its transport is late and (or) incomplete, the gas consumer is exempt from paying the supplier the penalty specified in part two of article 25 of the federal law ‘On gas supply in the Russian Federation’.”
“The special provisions approved by this decree apply in a constituent entity of the Russian Federation included in the list <…> from 9 August 2024 until the day on which all special regimes provided for in part 3 of article 8 of federal law № 391-FZ of 27 October 2025 are lifted (expire) <…>”
Where the right to do this comes from
The legal basis is article 34¹ of the gas-supply law, added in October 2025 by law № 391-FZ. During mobilization, under martial law or a counter-terrorist operation regime, or during a federal-level emergency response, the government may set “special provisions” for applying gas legislation in a list of regions that it draws up itself. The list is open-ended: three regions today, as many as the government chooses tomorrow. The same October law added a parallel power to the electricity law; as of 29 August, no such decree had appeared for electricity.
Who absorbs the loss
The decree creates no money — it moves a loss. Unpaid gas in the three regions stays on the books of gas and heat suppliers as receivables that now legally accrue no penalty and have lost their everyday levers of enforcement: disconnection is restricted and reconnection is unconditional; court recovery of the principal is the one tool the decree leaves untouched. Retroactivity means this is not about future bills — penalties accrued since August 2024 are cancelled after the fact. The budget feels it one step later: lower profits at gas and heat companies mean lower profit-tax receipts and, where the supplier is state-owned, smaller dividends.
The fourth document in ten days
This is the fourth government act in ten days to pass the war’s domestic costs to companies. Decree № 604 threatens owners of critical sites with temporary management; decrees № 1074 and № 1072 defer taxes for businesses hit by attacks, postponing the state’s own receipts; № 1087 goes further by cancelling other companies’ penalty claims outright. The pattern is consistent: the costs of protection, restoration and now non-payment land on private balance sheets before they reach the budget.
What this means for our model
Overdue receivables — 4 out of 100, the worst of the eight — measure exactly this kind of debt across the economy, indexed to the pre-war 2021 level. The decree itself adds no roubles to the total, but in three frontline regions it removes the mechanism that forced payment: state-sanctioned growth in receivables. It also sets a precedent that our indicator will register if the list grows or the same power is used for electricity. The rest is on the monitor.
What we do not know
The document gives no figures for either the gas debt of the three regions or the volume of penalties cancelled. It contains no compensation mechanism for suppliers, so it does not tell us whether they will receive anything from the budget. How long the “special regimes” will last is unknown, so the exemption has no end date. The government can extend the list of regions at any time.