Ukrainian Intelligence: Russians Are Preparing For Strikes

Because of the deep economic crisis.

Experts predict that due to the deep economic crisis, up to one third of small and medium-sized businesses will close in Russia in the near future. This is reported by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

"Russian small and medium-sized businesses entered 2026 in a state of deep crisis. According to surveys, 95% of entrepreneurs record a worsening situation, with three quarters reporting significant complications. A drop in revenue since the beginning of the year recorded 68.7% of respondents, and 5.5% have already ceased operations", - stated in the message.

It is noted that the strongest demand has fallen in the beauty industry, dentistry, maintenance and repair of cars. Profitability declined the most in auto repair, health care and pharmaceuticals, and hospitality. In parallel, shadow employment is growing in the same sectors. Prices have already been raised by 82.7% of entrepreneurs, more than half of which have increased their rates by up to 20%. Experts predict that up to one third of small and medium-sized businesses will close in the near future.

Wage arrears only in January 2026 reached 1.86 billion rubles, and 40.7% of this amount was formed in the first month of the year. The leader in unpaid wages is the construction industry: 42% of cases, followed by processing of raw materials (31.1%) and mining (11%).

The most notorious case is the collapse of the largest construction holding in Siberia, Novolex, which owed its employees about 2.5 billion rubles. Alfa Bank is demanding to recover 1 billion rubles from the holding, nine bankruptcy petitions have been filed in arbitration courts, and some heavy equipment has already been seized. The net profit of most of the holding's structures has fallen by 70-90%; the Novolex Trading House ended the year with a loss of 148 million rubles.

In the meantime, workers at Severputstroy and Severkomplektstroy in Vorkuta are preparing for strikes - they were last paid their full salaries back in December, while February's payments were not received at all. One strike has already taken place. Employees of the municipal "Specialized Road Department" have sought through the court to increase their salaries from 8 to 30-57 thousand rubles, but they have not received any money - most of them have simply been dismissed.

The problems with payments also cover other regions: bus drivers in Tyva, Kamchatka and Omsk region do not receive their salaries, road workers in Smolensk have been unsuccessfully seeking salary increases and normal working conditions since last year.

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