Russian VTB Bank initiated bankruptcy of "First Oil" group - intelligence
Kyiv • UNN
The state-owned Russian VTB Bank initiated the bankruptcy of the "First Oil" group due to a debt of $78.3 million. The assets of the company, which produces up to 500,000 tons of oil per year, will come under the control of state structures.
The state-owned Russian bank VTB has initiated bankruptcy proceedings against the "First Oil" oil group, as the company's debt to the bank amounts to $78.3 million. This is reported by UNN with reference to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
Details
This group extracts up to 500 thousand tons of oil per year in Komi and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and has proven reserves of about 14 million tons. Now all these assets will come under the control of state structures.
According to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, the reasons for the collapse are systemic. Sanctions pressure has driven down Russian oil prices below $40 per barrel, making some fields unprofitable.
The high key rate of the Central Bank made it impossible to refinance debts. The aggregate result of mining companies in 2025 is minus $7.5 billion, while the volume of restructured industry loans reached $35.2 billion: in fact, every fifth industry loan has been rewritten under new terms.
At the same time, in January 2026 alone, Russian companies defaulted on their debt obligations 51 times - twice as many as a year ago. The amount of missed payments is 3.38 billion rubles against 1.78 billion in January 2025. In just one week, 10 companies defaulted. For the entire year 2025, 25 bond defaults were recorded, which is a record since 2022.
According to the Central Bank, 11% of all corporate loans are already problematic. Including restructured loans - almost 15% of the entire corporate portfolio. 2.7 trillion rubles of loans to oil and gas companies were restructured, the same amount - in industry, 1.6 trillion - in metallurgy and mining. Coal miners accumulated more than 300 billion rubles of net loss.
Recall
Earlier, UNN, citing the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, reported that Russia is curtailing access to official statistics. This may indicate a deliberate concealment of the real state of the economy in the context of a full-scale war against Ukraine.
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine also reported that the Russian economy entered 2026 with very low indicators, including a record deficit of regional budgets of 1.538 trillion rubles.