A new package of US sanctions against Russia, adopted in August, could affect the activities of the largest Russian banks with state participation. This will lead to the disruption of the state defense order, since banks will not be able to finance the defense industry enterprises. To overcome the situation, the authorities of the country can create a new state bank.
The management of PJSC Sberbank and PJSC VTB Bank, which are the main creditors of the defense industry (accounting for 90% of loans), is thinking how to circumvent US sanctions, Bloomberg reported referring to its own sources. Restrictions imposed by Washington prohibit financing of the activities of the Russian defense industry, therefore, it is likely that state banks will not be able to conduct currency transactions for transferring funds to military plants. Now, Sberbank and VTB issue loans to the "defense industry", which are compensated by the government.
The August package of sanctions will receive concrete content only in early 2018. However, it is already clear that the US authorities are going to punish the company for "significant deals" with defense enterprises and Russian intelligence. For this they may face a ban on opening accounts in US banks, currency exchange transactions and the seizure of assets.
Sberbank and VTB are already under American sanctions imposed three years ago. In 2014 year. they lost access to the foreign capital market. If sanctions are tightened now, for banks this will become a serious problem. State bankers are very afraid of this development of the situation.
According to Bloomberg, after the introduction of the August package of sanctions, one of Russia's defense enterprises has already faced a delay in the receipt of funds. Therefore, the agency does not exclude that restrictive measures can completely stop the process of building up Russia's military power.
To avoid paralysis of the defense industry, the state is thinking of creating a new bank to finance the state defense order. However, such a bank can not exist in isolation, but no one will want to interact with this organization for fear of getting under sanctions. This means that the bank, too, will not be able to lend to the "defense industry".
Another option is to transfer money to defense enterprises directly from the budget. However, this would lead to serious strains on the Russian treasury. The Kremlin in this case will have to seriously increase the volume of government loans.
Analysts say that the imposition of sanctions may become a serious problem for state banks. "For Sberbank and VTB, the forced abandonment of a profitable business for lending to the military industry will be a serious blow," said Vasil Zatsepin, an expert on defense spending at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy.
Oleg Sysuev, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Alfa-Bank, also talks about the seriousness of the problem, but calls for waiting for the concretization of the sanctions package. "Naturally, none of the Russian banks, those that operate with the currency, especially public companies such as Sberbank, VTB and other banks, do not want to lose this opportunity (to credit defense enterprises). Sanctions have so far been declared only in general terms, and everyone is waiting for the concretization of these formulations of significant transactions, "the expert said in an interview with BFM.
The scientific employee of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Export of Arms" Andrei Frolov, seems unrealistic to create a separate bank to finance the state defense order. "This kind of monster create. That is, for example, last year the state defense order was about 1.6 trillion rubles. Probably, these amounts will decrease, but less than 1 trillion they will not fall anyway. How will this be organized? And most importantly, it can not be created by the magic wand, that is, it will take several years. There will be a transition period, when banks still have to go through a state defense order, "the expert said..