{"id":131147,"date":"2025-05-25T17:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/131147\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T17:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T17:07:08","slug":"russia-economy-meltdown-as-top-firm-loses-290m-and-rail-shipments-plummet-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/131147\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia economy meltdown as top firm ‘loses \u00a3290m’ and rail shipments plummet | World | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia’s biggest shipping company has posted a massive loss running into millions of pounds for the first quarter of 2025, as the country’s economic crisis gathers pace. Businesses across the country have been hit with a double whammy of high interest rates<\/a> and swinging Western sanctions, that have left many fighting for their survival.<\/p>\n

Companies are struggling to pay back bank loans, with interest rates<\/a> at 21% – the highest they have been in some 20 years. Sergey Chemezov, a close ally of Vladimir Putin<\/a> and the CEO of Rostec, has warned the Kremlin that hundreds of businesses could go bust if Russia<\/a>‘s Central Bank refuses to ease its tight monetary controls.<\/p>\n

The latest company to feel the harsh winds of the economic winter is the shipping giant Sovcomflot.<\/p>\n

Before Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine<\/a>, the company operated the world’s largest fleet of Aframax-class tankers and owned 10 icebreakers.<\/p>\n

The firm’s latest financial reports show it made a whopping loss of US$393 million (\u00a3290m) in the first three months of this year.<\/p>\n

This represents a stunning reversal from the US$216 million (\u00a3159m) profit it reported during the same period last year.<\/p>\n

The losses exceeded the total revenue, which fell 48% to US$278.5 million (\u00a3206m).<\/p>\n

Sovcomflot’s management blamed the imposition of “unprecedented sanctions” for its poor financial performance, but insisted there was enough cash reserves to weather the downturn.<\/p>\n

Before he left office in January, the then US President Joe Biden<\/a> blacklisted 54 Sovcomflot tankers and four of its gas carriers.<\/p>\n

The move was an attempt to clamp down on Russia<\/a>‘s exports of fossil fuels, a key source of income for the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Additionally, in February, the European Union<\/a> sanctioned Sovcomflot\u2019s subsidiary, SCF Arctica, along with 74 other Russian-linked tankers.<\/p>\n

It comes as some of Russia<\/a>‘s largest exporters have slashed their planned volume of railway shipments for 2025.<\/p>\n

The volume of freight transportation provides a valuable insight into the health of Russia<\/a>‘s manufacturing sector. Last year it hit a 15-year low.<\/p>\n

Documents seen by Reuters<\/a> forecast that Russia<\/a>‘s railways will transport 36.7 million tonnes less than the initially planned 1.24 billion tonnes for 2025.<\/p>\n

From January to April 2025, the total volume of freight transportation decreased by 6.8% year-on-year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia’s biggest shipping company has posted a massive loss running into millions of pounds for the first quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[1700,332,57815,16491,29402,7339,57816,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-131147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-russia-central-bank","11":"tag-russia-inflation","12":"tag-russia-interest-rates","13":"tag-russia-sanctions","14":"tag-sovcomflot","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114569572881393626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}