LONDON (Reuters) – Russia’s two biggest banks plan to open branches and offices in July in regions of Ukraine that Moscow says were annexed in 2022, the heads of Sberbank and VTB said on Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to annex the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine in September 2022 after what Ukraine called fictitious referendums. This move was condemned by many countries as illegal.
Russian forces only partially control these four regions.
State-owned Promsvyazbank, which has focused on government workers and the defense sector since receiving a bailout from the central bank in 2017, is already opening branches in four regions as Russia seeks to provide cheap loans and banking services to civilians and soldiers. services.
“Our first 16 branches should open there within a month and a half,” Sberbank head German Gref said in the upper house of the Russian parliament on Tuesday. “This way we will be present throughout the country.”
No. 2 lender VTB will open two offices in Lugansk in July and plans to begin serving clients in Donetsk and the port city of Mariupol in the Donetsk region by the end of the year, CEO Andrey Kostin said on Tuesday.
VTB branches there will serve retail clients, as well as small and medium-sized businesses.