“The largest Western banks remaining in Russia paid the Kremlin more than 800 million euros in taxes last year, a fourfold increase from pre-war levels, despite promises to minimize their exposure to Russia after the ‘full-scale invasion of Ukraine’. More than half of the 800 million euros in taxes paid by European banks “can be traced back to the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International, which has the largest presence of foreign credit institutions in Russia”.
The ‘Financial Times’ wrote it, underlining “that the seven main European banks with activities in Russia – Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit, Ing, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and Otp – recorded a combined profit of over 3 billion euros in 2023. These profits were three times higher than in 2021 and were partly generated by funds that banks cannot withdraw from the country.”
The increase in profitability, underlines the ‘Financial Times’, “has led European banks to pay around 800 million euros in taxes, compared to 200 million euros in 2021. This figure adds to the profits of credit institutions Americans such as Citigroup and JpMorgan”.
