The National Corruption Prevention Agency listed the Austrian group Raiffeisen Bank International as an international sponsor of the war.
This was reported press service of the NAPC.
RBI is one of the largest Austrian banking groups and operates in 14 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and serves 17.2 million customers.
“The reason for including in the list of international sponsors of the war was that in addition to the fact that after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the bank continued to work in Russia, Raiffeisen also officially recognized the so-called DPR and LPR,” the Agency explains.
The bank has been operating in the Russian Federation since 1996 and is included in the list of systemically principled Russian banks.
Besides the fact that Raiffeisen is one of the few European banks that continue to work in Russia, the bank also took advantage of the sanctions by 200%, which led to the withdrawal of its competitors from the Russian market.
Raiffeisen is one of the most important financial channels in which Russian businesses conduct transactions in dollars and euros. Thanks to this, the bank receives huge incomes, from which it then finances the budget of the aggressor country with its taxes.
In 2022, the bank paid 4.8 times more to the Russian budget than in the entire pre-war year – 559 million euros – which is equal to the cost of 95 Kalibr missiles.
In addition, Raiffeisen not only officially recognizes the so-called DPR and LPR through its Russian representative office, but also provides credit holidays and preferential loans to Russian occupiers. The NAPC explains that in this way the bank actually rewards the Russian military for their war crimes.
Raiffeisen also plays along with Russian propaganda, calling the war a “special military operation.”
The National Bank notes the lack of progress in making decisions on the bank’s exit from the Russian market. On the contrary, Raiffeisen Bank remains an active participant in the Russian banking market, competing to increase its loan portfolio.
Thus, all these facts and the continuation of Raiffeisen Bank’s operations in Russia mean direct support and sponsorship of terrorism, the Agency concluded.
Reminder:
The management of the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International discussed a possible asset swap scheme with the Russian Sberbank in order to receive the amount of proceeds that RBI received in Russia in 2022 and cannot withdraw due to the restrictions of the Russian authorities.
