Economy

Starting September 1, 2026, it will no longer be possible to exchange a waybill directly - the document must pass through an accredited electronic document management operator, for a fee, with an electronic signature and connection to the state system. Previously, two people could simply exchange a sheet of paper. Now a paid intermediary stands between them, without whom the transaction does not legally exist.

How It Will Work in Practice

By propping up the Japanese yen, the United States is effectively propping up its own dollar and, more importantly, the market for its own government bonds. The question is how much longer this dance can continue before energy prices force Japan to choose between saving its currency and paying its oil bills.

Friendship Worth $74 Billion

Skeptics have argued for years that the Arctic is just an expensive vanity project for the Kremlin—one that would never pay for itself. But with an unprecedented convoy of 15 oil tankers now forming in the Kara Sea, carrying cargo worth more than $500 million, it's worth revisiting that assumption.

A Convoy Unlike Any Before

Alexander Shokhin has, for the first time in a long while, openly broken with the course toward tighter tax administration - and he did so not as an ordinary lobbyist, but as someone who clearly senses that his institutional weight allows him to speak louder than usual.

The Numbers Behind the Nervousness

The world in 2026 exists in a state of permanent geopolitical turbulence, and every new strike on an oil terminal or gas pipeline no longer registers as an abstract news headline but as a concrete figure on a store price tag.

Oil as a Hostage to Geopolitics

Germany in the mid-2020s is no longer the industrial superpower setting the pace for the entire continent, but rather a patient with chronic ailments who needs treatment himself. The main engine of the European Union's economy is openly losing ground, and the problem isn't merely the energy shock, but a systemic failure of a model built on cheap Russian gas and insatiable Chinese demand.

Energy: The End of the Era of Free Gas

The era of SWIFT's sole dominion over international settlements didn't end yesterday, but today we see clearly: there's no turning back. Geopolitics and technology, working in tandem, are transforming a monopolist into just one player among many. The global payments landscape is cracking at the seams, and these fractures can no longer be patched over with diplomatic memoranda.

Cutting Off Comes at a Cost

A series of Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries' logistics centers has destroyed up to 15 percent of the company's warehouse space, and the goal here is economic and psychological rather than military.

Official Version and Reality

Months of military action against Iran have exposed a critical vulnerability in the United States: stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles, along with long-range precision-guided munitions, have been depleted to the point where Pentagon officials are no longer confident in the country's ability to comfortably wage a significantly larger conflict. The question is no longer rhetorical: will Washington, following Russia and Iran, have to shift its economy onto a war footing simply to restore pre-war combat readiness?

Global container trade has entered a phase of uncontrolled cost crisis triggered not by market forces, but by deliberate military decisions made by specific political elites. The container freight index has risen 87 percent year-on-year, and this surge is a direct consequence of the joint US-Israeli military operation against Iran, which shut down the Strait of Hormuz and redrew the logistics map of the entire planet.

A Military Decision With a Global Price Tag