Days after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Raiffeisen, an Austrian financial institution, mentioned it was contemplating promoting its enterprise in Russia. Twenty-seven months later, the lender’s unit within the nation is doing relatively nicely. Its employees has grown to almost 10,000, a 7% rise since 2022. Final 12 months its revenue reached €1.8bn ($2bn)—greater than any of the financial institution’s different subsidiaries and a tripling since 2021. Raiffeisen is one in all a dozen lenders that Russia deems “systemically” vital to its financial system. The financial institution additionally issues to the Kremlin’s personal funds, because it paid the equal of half a billion {dollars} in tax final 12 months.
