According to the St. Petersburg system: the main summer transfers of the RPL

Zenit St. Petersburg's acquisition of striker Felipe Augusto is the most high—profile RPL transfer so far this summer. The club from the Northern Capital has once again confirmed its activity in the Brazilian market. Meanwhile, Lokomotiv has been reinforced by defender Georgy Dzhikiya and midfielder Alexander Kovalenko. For the rest, Premier League clubs are still operating rather cautiously in the transfer market.

The Brazilian course

Having regained the championship title at the end of May, Zenit did not force its work on the transfer market. In the first month of the offseason, the club limited itself to buying Colombian defender Kevin Andrade from Kaliningrad Baltic for € 3.5 million (according to Transfermarkt), and also extended the contract with veteran Alexander Erokhin.

This week, the blue-white-blues have already completed a more high-profile deal. They acquired striker Felipe Augusto, who played for Turkish SIDE Trabzonspor last season and scored 13 goals in 32 Turkish league matches. According to media reports, the transfer amount was about €15 million. Zenit's newcomer is only 22 years old, and he continues the club's line of acquiring promising young Brazilian footballers.

Since 2019, the St. Petersburg club has regularly invested heavily in players of this age. During this time, about 10 similar transactions were executed. The most successful were the transitions of Malcom, Claudinho and Wendell. Together with them, Sergey Semak's team won most of the six consecutive championships won in 2018-2024.

On the sale of Malcom and Claudinho, Zenit subsequently managed to return a significant portion of the invested funds. Wendell remains one of the leaders of the team, despite periodic problems with discipline related to delays in training camps. The last major acquisition in the Brazilian market was the transfer of Luis Enrique in early 2025. After that, the club's activity in this area decreased somewhat.

In part, the decline in activity in the Brazilian market was attributed to the resignation of Alexander Medvedev, chairman of the Zenit Board, during which almost all major Brazilian transfers took place. After he was replaced by Konstantin Zyryanov, the club did not make such deals for almost a year. At the same time, Medvedev retained his job in the Zenit structure as an adviser to Zyryanov, so it cannot be ruled out that he also took part in the preparation of the transfer of Felipe Augusto.

Point reinforcement

Georgy Dzhikiya spent last season at Antalyaspor in Turkey, with whom he terminated his contract on June 23. Soon, the defender signed a one-year agreement with Lokomotiv, of which he is a graduate. However, he never reached the main squad of the railway workers, having left the club in 2013 at the age of 19.

After several seasons in the lower leagues, Dzhikiya managed to establish himself in Amkar Perm, which led to a transfer to Spartak Moscow at the end of 2016. Already in his first full season, he became the champion of Russia, and then for seven and a half years he was one of the leaders of the red and white, most of that time he was the captain of the team. As a member of Spartak, Georgy also won the Russian Cup in 2022. After leaving the Moscow club, he spent a season at Khimki, and after the bankruptcy of the Moscow region team, he moved to Turkey. Now the 32-year-old defender must strengthen the center of defense of Lokomotiv.

Alexander Kovalenko is one of the most talented students of the Chertanovo Academy, through which many current RPL stars have passed. In 2022-2023, he managed to make a name for himself in the Premier League as part of the Samara Wings of the Soviets. After that, he moved to Zenit, but did not gain a foothold there. Then there were transfers to Orenburg and Sochi. After Sochi was relegated to the First League last spring, Lokomotiv leased Kovalenko from him. And now the 22-year-old midfielder will try to unleash his talent as part of the current bronze medalist of the national championship.

"The club has made two good signings, acquiring two players who will at least strengthen the depth of the squad," Nikolai Naumov, former president of Lokomotiv, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Djikia will use his experience to strengthen the center of defense, help replace someone from the base in case of injury, or easily survive the possible departure of Cesar Montes if there is demand for him in Europe this summer, which he may be, since this player is successfully playing for Mexico at the World Cup. But Georgy himself is not yet such an old football player that he will not be able to win the competition for a place at the base, even if Loko retains all the central defenders. And Kovalenko will strengthen the competition in the middle line. Due to his unconventional actions, he can help the attacking group if he plays the way he did in his best seasons at Krylia.

Other transfers

Among other notable transfers this summer, it is worth noting the transfer of defender Ilya Vakhania from Rostov to Krasnodar. Vakhania has been one of the leaders of Rostov in recent seasons and is regularly called up to the Russian national team.

Krylia Sovetov acquired midfielder Denis Makarov. The talented player left Dynamo Moscow in the winter due to a conflict with the then head coach of the team, Rolan Gusev, and spent six months at Kayserispor in Turkey, which he left at the end of the season due to the club's salary debts.

In addition, the Samaritans have completed a full-fledged transfer of defender Nikita Chernov, who spent last season in the team on loan from Spartak. The Volga team also bought the contract of defender Ivan Lepsky from Dynamo.

Akhmat Grozny brought back its pupil Arsen Adamov from Zenit, who clearly showed himself in the Ural team back in 2021 and earned a call-up to the Russian national team.

Baltika acquired defender Maxim Shnaptsev from Pari Nizhny Novgorod, who had flown out of the RPL. And CSKA parted ways with their defensive midfielder Maxim Mukhin, who started his career in the ranks of the army in 2021-2023, but then lost his place in the squad due to a serious injury. Now he has moved to Rostov.