US sanctions driving Russian billionaires into Putin’s arms
The Trump administration is helping Vladimir Putin achieve a goal that’s eluded him for almost two decades—getting Russia’s billionaires to start repatriating some of their assets.
Relatively muted sanctions imposed during the Obama era over the conflict in Ukraine have only widened in scope and severity since Trump took office last year. The unpredictability of both the White House and Congress is forcing Russians to move money into state-run banks and rejig the offshore superstructure that’s sheltered fortunes here since communism’s collapse, Bloomberg reports.
Tycoons and their executives said the rush to move assets beyond the reach of the US Treasury started with the biggest enterprises in April, when Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg and their companies lost billions within hours of being hit with the harshest penalties to date. Now the trend is accelerating, spurred by the threat of even more draconian measures over Russia’s alleged election meddling and nerve-agent attack on a turncoat spy in England.
“It’s toxic to be Russian,” said Oleg Vyugin, a former senior central bank official who is now chairman of the Moscow Exchange. “And the richer you are, the more toxic you are.”
Most of Russia’s biggest non-state exporters have emptied their accounts in the US and Europe, with many transferring funds to state-run banks or local units of European lenders, several people familiar with the matter said. The central bank doesn’t publish statistics specifically on repatriated funds, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much money companies are bringing back.
But Sberbank PJSC, Russia’s largest lender, just reported a 17 percent jump in corporate holdings in all currencies in January through August, to the equivalent of about $98 billion. And balance-of-payment data show Russia’s private sector brought more financial assets home than it sent overseas in the second quarter for only the third time since sanctions started in 2014.
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