Russia’s timber companies are facing new retroactive charges dating back to at least 2024 that could cost billions of rubles — and they have 30 days to pay. That is according to Kommersant, which reported that authorities have slapped on back-charges on top of already elevated forest lease rates covering the 2024–2025 period, with some companies poised to be charged 1 billion rubles or more. For mills already running anti-crisis plans, producers say it could be the difference between survival and shutdown.
It comes as Russia’s forest industry “is going through one of the most tense periods in its modern history,” the Russian Pulp and Paper Association warned in a letter to Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, before the rent bills even arrived. Logging volumes had already fallen more than 10 per cent year on year in 2025, “20–30 per cent below the average metrics for the last decade,” according to Nikolay Ivanov, Segezha Group Executive Board Member.
Wood Central understands that a government resolution that took effect on January 1, 2024, is at the centre of the dispute — a ruling that changed how forest lease distances are measured and pushed hundreds of plots into higher rate brackets overnight, while removing a 0.9 reduction factor common across northwest Russia. Regional forestry authorities had held off on collecting retroactive payments after guidance from Rosleskhoz, but that changed once an Accounts Chamber audit landed in late 2025, with companies reporting that bills they had never budgeted for began arriving last month.
It comes amid mounting pressure on some of Russia’s largest producers.
The Ilim Group, Russia’s largest timber company by harvesting volume, has estimated the additional charges at roughly 3.3 billion rubles across 2024–2026. Segezha Group, once the world’s second-largest producer of multiwall sack paper and industrial paper sacks, has already halted two plants in northwest Russia, with ULC Group also running two sawmills idle — the latest casualty in a sector Wood Central has tracked since sanctions first hit in 2022.
Russia had staked much of its post-sanctions survival on redirecting volumes east, but that strategy has run into a prolonged property construction downturn, leaving exporters with few options. Softwood lumber exports to China fell 8 per cent year-on-year to 4.37 million m³ in January–May 2025, according to Lesprom Network. “Attempts to redirect exports to Asia have faced challenges, including price pressure from Chinese buyers and severe congestion on the Russian Railways’ Eastern route,” Lesprom said. Chinese buyers know they have leverage. They are using it.
The Central Bank of Russia has held its key rate at 16 per cent throughout, with borrowing costs absorbing roughly 25 per cent of sawmill profits and margins squeezed to around 4 per cent, even before the retroactive lease bills landed. The Russian Pulp and Paper Association has urged Manturov to form a dedicated industry task force, warning that, without immediate support, many producers risk halting operations entirely — a plea that, as Wood Central reported last year, has gone unanswered.
Companies are now asking the government to scrap retroactive recalculations entirely and limit new rate rules to contracts signed after January 1, 2024. Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development has reported GDP fell 2.1 per cent year on year in January 2026, with Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service estimating the 2025 federal budget deficit at 8.01 trillion rubles, equivalent to 3.7 per cent of GDP, against an official figure of 2.6 per cent. Moscow is not flush. Whether it has the room or the appetite to offer struggling sawmill operators any relief at all remains to be seen.
