"Mirror", "mixer" and "tail"

The most effective sanctions were unexpectedly the simplest - financial, said Harvard Professor Oleg Itskhoki. “It has become more difficult to both receive payment of export supplies, and pay for imported goods. To a certain extent, we managed to solve this problem, ” said Vladimir Putin.

The business really adapted, payments are going - just everything has become more complicated, longer, more expensive. As the calculations are now underway, Dmitry Nekrasov, co -founder and director of the CASE analytical center, tried to find out. For this, he interviewed 19 representatives of importers, 11 - exporters and three people from companies engaged in cross -border transfer of money. Some performed simultaneously in two forms, so there were 29 respondents in total. Where it is possible, Nekrasov checked the size of the commissions, calling banks, payment agents, etc., or finding this information on their sites.

This article is a free retelling of the report of Nekrasov. Earlier, he explained why the Russian economy will be able to withstand the war for a long time, and his colleague Vladislav Inozemtsev - how it adapted to the war.

Not stopped, but hidden

The sanctions banned the supply of many goods to Russia - first of all, dual -use, but not only. Russian banks also fell under sanctions - it is forbidden to work with them, many are disconnected from SWIFT. The list of banks and goods was constantly expanding, and last year almost more or less significant, as well as the Moscow Exchange, which had to be stopped in dollars and the euro, were in it. In addition, at the end of 2023, US President Joe Biden issued a decree that allows you to impose secondary sanctions against foreign banks that help Russia bypassing restrictions.

Each wave of sanctions and the pressure of the American authorities to comply with their complication led to calculations, pushing a new part of the business on the shadow paths of payments. Respondents called very different points when the situation with payments for them worsened compared to the pre -war period. Someone faced problems and rebuilt the work in the spring of 2022. Most respondents did this in 2023, and some continued to work “like in 2021” until the spring-2024 spring. The bulk of the calculations passed into the shadow zone invisible to Western regulators. Or almost invisible.

As a result, there was an alternative system of international calculations serving Russian foreign trade. It consists of several contours, is served by many different operators and successfully adapts to the actions of Western regulators. The arsenal of pressure funds on it has not yet been exhausted, but all previous actions of the EU and the United States led only to temporary interruptions in payments.

Before the war, Russia, like everyone else, traded mainly in dollars, the euro and other world currencies: in 2021, 85% of exports and 68% of imports were paid for them, another 14 and 28% were rubles. The share of the rest was insignificant: 1% exports and 4% of imports. Last year, only 19% exports and 22% of imports accounted for the currencies of the “unfriendly” countries. The main currency of the calculations was the ruble (more than 40% of exports and imports) and the currency of “friendly” countries (40% exports and 35% of imports), primarily Yuan.

Mix, but do not shake

The main partner of Russia was China, trade with it is almost completely in rubles and yuan. These operations are a third of the entire foreign trade turnover, follows from the data of the FCS. The number of Chinese companies with accounts in Russian banks and Russian firms - customers of Chinese banks was significant before the war, but has increased repeatedly in recent years.

Initially, a simple scheme was protected from the eyes and actions of Western controllers: all calculations are carried out in rubles within one Russian bank. The Chinese importer transfers rubles from his account to the Russian exporter’s account, and Chinese exporters at the same time receive rubles from their counterparties. Outsiders do not have access to data on the transfer of rubles and do not even know them.

This scheme had to upgrade. To understand how, we will need three terms from the slang of circuitry.

Mirror . Even in an ideal situation, when export is equal to import and all operations go through one bank, the question arises: why are the Chinese rubles? Their exporters need yuan, and importers, on the contrary, need to exchange yuani for rubles somewhere to pay for deliveries from Russia according to this scheme. But most transfers between Russian and Chinese banks can be visible to Western regulators (for example, through SWIFT).

To become invisible, Chinese firms open mirror yuan accounts in a Chinese bank, which is somehow related to Russian (for example, an agreement on the division of translation commissions). Thus two mirror systems arise: rubles turn inside the Russian bank, and Yuani - Chinese, this is most often also imperceptibly to Western regulators. If there are no direct transfers between Chinese and Russian banks, then the existence of a “mirror” can only be detected according to indirect data using significant investigative resources.

Mixer . In order to better confuse traces, payments, as a rule, are additionally passing through a bank or group of banks in which cash flows associated with Russia are mixed with others. These are daily operations serving companies within the country and foreign trade. At the exit from such a “mixer”, it is difficult to distinguish the money associated with Russia from others. On both sides of the border in the Organization of Mirror and Mixers, a whole group of banks with a variety of legal operations is involved. In China, this is mainly involved in small rural banks (the so -called Rural Banks): there are a lot of them, and the reporting is specific and it is difficult to understand it to a non -resident.

If the Chinese company does not have a ruble account, it can conduct calculations in the yuan through the Chinese intermediary. Often he is not only a payment agent, but also provides real services for the transportation and customs clearance of goods. This intermediary pays with Russian counterparties in Russia in rubles. He can close his own counter streams in different currencies (one client needs to be paid by rubles, the other with yuani) or work as an element of banking infrastructure due to bank resources. All this makes it possible to detect the “mirrors” and “mixers”, not to mention the fact that it is legally prove their existence.

Tail . But not everything is so simple. The main catch is that in reality it is never anywhere - neither the intermediary, nor within a single bank, nor in the ecosystem of connected banks - the needs for yuan and rubles cannot always coincide. Today, the mirror participants need more yuan than rubles, tomorrow - vice versa. Banks and agents hold the supply of each of the currencies at both ends of the chain, and still, in the vast majority of the constructed schemes, an excess or lack of a certain currency is constantly formed.

These sticking “tails” are the main threat to the scheme, you can notice it: operators are forced to exchange excess currency for the one that they lack. Ruble "tails" inside the Russian banking system or yuan inside Chinese can still be broken by direct conversion between Russian and Chinese banks. But the inevitable imbalance in the trade of Russia with any other country (for example, India Russia sells an order of magnitude more than it buys from it) does not allow, when closing the “tails”, to do without currencies of third countries - usually Western, which imposed sanctions.

“Mirrors” and “mixers” are the main mechanisms that allow real calculations to remain invisible to the Western organs, and the “tails” is the main problem that pose a threat to detection when closing them.

Market. Gray market

After the outbreak of war, the calculations remained straight, just for payments, not dollars were used, but to the yuan. Russian companies massively opened accounts in them in Russian banks and - less massively in Chinese. The share of ruble calculations also grew, but Chinese businesses were not so interested in the transition to rubles, like Russian to Yuan. Most did not even need the "mirrors".

But since the 2023rd and especially since the summer of 2024, the pressure of American regulators on the Chinese banking system increased. This made transfers between Russian and Chinese banks and the exchange of rubles for yuan is more expensive and risky. The business responded with the transfer of operations to the ruble zone and the mass creation of “mirrors”. The transition rate was determined by the pressure of the West to Chinese banks and open accounts with physical capabilities. For example, in some regions of China there were no local banks participating in mirror schemes, and the line for opening accounts at VTB-Shanhei stretched for months. The West’s pressure on Chinese banks made VTB-Shanhei, the only branch of the Russian bank in China, the largest settlement operator between the two countries.

There were other problems, for example, Chinese tax authorities did not return export VAT to local companies when paying for goods in rubles, but gradually they decided. By the end of 2024, most of the calculations with China switched to “mirror” operations in parallel in the ruble and yuan contours.

According to the same scenario, there would be a good part of the calculations with the CIS countries, Turkey and Iran. Their main difference from China is a much smaller volume of “real” trade with Russia, in which it is more difficult to “get lost” of transit from third countries and, accordingly, calculations with these countries. Transit through China is less than 20% (and possibly less than 10%) from real trade with Russia. For Turkey, he reached 50%, and with some countries the CIS sometimes exceeded it several times. Therefore, calculations with these countries were not so stable, the situation changed many times under pressure not only of the Western countries, but also of local regulators.

Despite this, everything developed according to the scenario similar to the Chinese. In 2022, simple transactions predominated: calculations for imports from Turkey were in liras that exchanged for dollars or euros in Turkey and went to pay for goods, which was formally exported from third countries to Turkey, and in fact to Russia. As the nuts twisted, the calculations switched to the "mirrors". The payments in dollars and euros were replaced by calculations in lira and manat.

Like before the war

But in the case of India, the countries of Southeast Asia and the UAE “Chinese” scheme are used much less often. Most of the calculations are carried out in the same way as in “unfriendly” currencies - through Russian banks that did not fall under the sanctions, that is, approximately before the war, but with amendment to changed circumstances.

Formally, the sanctions of the EU or the United States do not concern many goods, and the problems with their payment are caused by excessive zeal of compliance services of banks, which prefer to not approve of any operations with Russia away from sin. But there are exceptions, and some payments continue to be made "as in 2021."

There are also intermediaries with a network of legal entities in countries around the world. For real counterparties of Russian business, they look like exporters or importers from third countries. From their accounts, payment is made for imported goods and receiving payments for Russian export. So export revenue remains in the accounts outside of Russia from which Russian imports are paid. In Russia, companies from the network of intermediary registered in transit countries accept ruble payments from importers, as well as pay exporters in rubles for their goods (this allows you to return VAT during export). The services of intermediaries are mainly used by small and medium -sized businesses, preferring to work “in white”.

For a large business, there is a certain analogue of an informal currency exchange outside of Russia. It works something like this: large non -conquest exporters leave on accounts abroad up to 80% of export revenue in “unfriendly” currencies. When they need rubles in Russia, they put up for sale the desired amount of currency, informing banks, large importers and intermediaries about this. Then everything is simple: in Russia, the exporter receives rubles, for example, from a large retailer, and pays for its purchases with currency from his foreign account. The course on this “exchange” is often noticeably different from the official and, perhaps, better reflects the real course for Russian foreign trade. The values ​​of the currency are indicated by the fact that importers pay exporters 1.5–2% to the Central Bank, and in turbulent periods and more.

Each has its own situation, and besides these typical schemes, there are many individual ones. But the calculations always “mirror” separately: unfriendly currencies turn in the outer circuit, rubles - inside Russia, without direct wiring between the contours.

Past the bank

There are alternative calculations that do not use the banking system. These are cryptocurrencies (the cheapest means of importing imports), money transfers and even haval. Thousands of independent operators participate in this system of Islamic translations, ready to transfer money almost anywhere. Havala has existed for many centuries, has no clear legal structure, so the sanctions are not afraid of it.

These channels use small “gray” importers, emigrants and small business to export capital. The oncoming flow is formed due to mining, where Russia is one of the leaders, income of owners and salaries of employees of companies from the Betting, porn business, etc., where the Russians are also quite active. Part of the services provided from Russia, primarily in IT, is also paid from abroad in a crypt or through payment systems.

But the intermediaries using cryptocurrencies for calculations with Russia are also used by “mixers” and even “mirrors” to minimize even the theoretical probability of persecution.

There are also completely exotic calculation mechanisms. Imagine this situation: gold, illegally obtained in a certain African country, or exported from a country under sanctions, is located in a bank of a third country, such as the Persian Gulf. The bearer receipts are issued for this. Such operations are not reflected in the bank's reports. Such receipts until 2022 were an important payment remedy in foreign trade operations between the countries of Africa, the Gulf and South Asia, as well as the mechanism of accumulation of some African regimes not controlled by the West. According to two respondents, with the involvement of Russian oil exported to India and the African countries, some of the calculations for Russian export began to be made using the same receipts. It is impossible to check this, but other respondents mentioned the obligations of third parties (without binding to gold) as a means of international calculations in connection with operations for the decomposition of “tails”.

The scale of such operations, more similar to the practice of medieval merchants than to calculations of the 21st century, is hardly large, but they are definitely not visible to Western controllers, and warehouse receipts for gold may well be a secret means of saving assets part of the Russian elite.

How much does it cost

It would seem that the cost of transfers should grow when new sanctions are introduced or pressure is growing on those who close their eyes to how they can do. It wasn't there! The costs of operators of cross -border transfers changed constantly and chaotic, but this almost did not affect their commissions.

According to all the laws of the market, for new customers, the size of the VTB-Shanhei commission for transfers was changed in accordance with demand. Before the war, transfer to China cost less than 0.2%, then the commission gradually grew, reaching a peak of 4%in September 2024. This was the period of the most massive transfer of calculations with China to the ruble zone, and the queues for opening accounts at VTB-Shanhei were the longest. Using his unique position, VTB earned to the maximum. Gradually, the situation normalized, and in December 2024 the commission decreased to 2.4%. Some companies began to transfer settlements into cheaper banks - the commission of 4% turned out to be “above the market”.

This, of course, is not all the costs. In addition to the main commission for transfer, the bank takes a fee for foreign exchange control, earns on the difference in its conversion rate with the Central Bank (this is about 1.5%). During periods of interruptions with VTB-Shanhei payments, he also levied the commission for accelerating payment, which reached 5% (however, this did not last long). This was announced by one respondent, others talked about this practice. Thus, in peak moments, total losses could exceed 10% of the payment amount.

The situations in which Russian companies operate are too strong in order to derive the average losses of losses - except that very wide ranges and the most general patterns. Exporters lose significantly fewer importers at the commissions. They sell "unfriendly" currencies outside Russia on the rate slightly higher than the official. Large exporters say that the difference blocks their costs for the content of payment infrastructure - their income from exports even increased by 1-3%. Экспортеры поменьше вынуждены пользоваться услугами посредников, им приходится доплачивать за получение экспортной выручки — как правило, 2–7%. Значительная часть издержек на содержание платежной инфраструктуры фиксирована, поэтому чем крупнее бизнес, тем они менее чувствительны.

Импортеры теряют не менее 3%: крупные — до 5%, средние и мелкие — до 10%.

Но есть и те, кто от всего этого выиграл. Это «серые» импортеры, которые не платят налоги и таможенные пошлины или платят частично. Их затраты на платежи составляли 3–4%, а теперь все остальные платят больше.

Много это или мало

Издержки так сильно разнятся, что оценить их общий размер слишком сложно. В среднем Россия за время войны торговала на 700 млрд долларов в год. По очень грубой прикидке, если взять «среднее по больнице» и усреднить потери импортеров и экспортеров, то 1,5–4% потерь дадут 10–30 млрд долларов в год, в среднем 20 млрд. Заметная часть этих денег достается российским же посредникам и схемотехникам, но и издержки в других юрисдикциях тоже нельзя сбрасывать со счетов.

Сумма впечатляет, но в масштабах российской экономики она совсем невелика. Это 1% от прошлогоднего ВВП (2,1 трлн долларов) и меньше прироста военных расходов бюджета в этом году (2,8 трлн рублей, или 30 млрд долларов). По научной оценке Александра Фиранчука из РАНХиГС, в 2023 году потери из-за удорожания импорта составляют 20 млрд долларов.

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Дело не в деньгах. Если взглянуть с точки зрения системных изменений, то влияние покажется гораздо более значительным.

Это прежде всего вынужденный уход значительной части внешней торговли в тень. Российский бизнес долго «обелялся», а теперь идет в обратном направлении. Многие импортеры, до войны «белые», полностью или частично перешли на «серые» схемы. Другого варианта у них не было, разве что закрыть бизнес: издержки взаимодействия с банками для малого бизнеса неподъемны. Вынуждены уходить в тень и малые, и средние экспортеры, чьи потребители не готовы работать с российскими поставщиками или пользоваться схемами для перевода денег в Россию. Подобные проблемы в первую очередь затрагивают экспорт IT-услуг или относительно сложной продукции в «недружественные» страны.

Экспортеры используют фиктивного поставщика, или «фронт». Некоторых за большие комиссии «фронтят» реальные иностранные компании со схожим бизнесом. Других — финансовые посредники через созданную специально под эти цели компанию, отвечающую определенным требованиям. Услуга по получению денег на подобную компанию и переправке их в Россию стоит дороже, нежели просто принять деньги. Во многих случаях единственным способом сохранить экспортные контракты — создать свою компанию в транзитной или «недружественной» стране, а иногда реально перенести туда часть функционала. Издержки при этом составляют 10–15% выручки, но бывает и больше.

Максимальные потери понесли высокотехнологичные или законопослушные компании, минимальные — сырьевые или работающие в серой зоне. Это консервирует сырьевую структуру экономики и демотивирует соблюдать правила.

Обход санкций требует высокой квалификации и творческого подхода, и многие тысячи талантливых россиян вместо того чтобы зарабатывать на создании новых полезных вещей, стали зарабатывать на обходе правил. Проблема еще и в профессиональной деформации. Многие из этих людей всю жизнь продолжат заниматься обходом правил. И список последствий можно продолжать долго.