In late November 2024, russia passed a law that would allow military personnel who signed up after December 1, 2024, to have their loan debt written off. The write-off would cover loans of up to 10 million rubles (approximately USD $94,400) and would also apply to spouses. This is in addition to the loan repayment holidays for russian servicemen programme. Mediazona reports that 411,000 repayment holidays for mortgages and personal loans have been taken up since October 2022, according to the UK Defense Intelligence.
Russia’s financial incentives to military recruits are almost certainly intended to secure sufficient replacements for their steadily increasing casualties, now totalling over 760,000 killed and injured, and averaging 1,523 a day in November 2024. The incentives are also almost certainly intended to reduce the potential for russia to have to enact further mobilizations, which are seen by russian leadership as both damaging to public support for the war, and raising the risk of further detrimental large-scale emigration.
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Writing off loan repayments will highly likely increase financial pressures on russian banks into 2025, in addition to pressures from high interest rates and sanctions. This will almost certainly reduce the resilience of the banking sector to respond to a potential economic shock.
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