“There was absolute chaos against us”: bank director told Putin about the impact of sanctions

Vladimir Putin met with VTB director Andrey Kostin. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/press service of the President of the Russian Federation/TASS

The start of a special operation last year showed that some companies in the defense industry urgently need good managers. Therefore, the financial management of military factories began to be entrusted to people with management experience a year and a half ago. Therefore, VTB Bank had to take under its protection the largest shipyards in the country, including those where nuclear submarines are manufactured. The chairman of the board of directors of VTB, Andrei Kostin, informed Vladimir Putin about the development of the process.

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“I visited the largest companies in the sector: Sevmashzavod, Zvezdochka in the Arkhangelsk region, Baltic Plant, Proletarsky Plant and Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg, Krasnoye Sormovo in Nizhny Novgorod,” the financier lists. He supervised everywhere compliance with the state defense order.

Kostin vaguely called the work “satisfactory,” although he acknowledged “shortcomings.”

– How does the VTB team itself react to the fact that such a colossal asset has appeared? – asked the president.

– The teams go to the companies. “We are working on both a financial recovery plan and a long-term investment plan,” Kostin responded.

In short, bankers are now doing what they do best. Fortunately, there is something to work on: the financier admitted that some shipyards execute orders at a loss.

“This encourages them to look for new technologies,” Vladimir Vladimirovich noted.

The director of VTB assured that new technologies will be found. In addition, the teams are prepared to develop, work and comply with government orders.

And the demand for boats in the country is enormous. In fact, it’s so big that Kostin even talked about building two new shipyards. One is in the St. Petersburg area and the other in the Far East. There are not enough dry cargo ships, oil tankers, fishing vessels and crab fishermen. Specific plans are promised to be shown next spring.

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– What is the bank itself like? – Putin clarified.

The financier called the year “successful”: VTB earned 420 billion rubles. Although in 2022 the bank suffered a lot.

– There was absolute chaos against us: they took away our foreign banks, now they are liquidating them. Of course, we suffered serious losses,” Kostin said.

But not only VTB survived, but the entire banking sector. Now a reorientation towards the Russian and Asian domestic market is taking place. The only Russian bank in China will double its turnover in a year.

– Our ill-wishers did not expect that the Russian banking sector would go through all the difficulties in this way. They did not take into account the basic things that a bank is not just a box where money is stored, but is part of the economy. The banking sector reflects the state of the economy as a whole,” Vladimir Vladimirovich stressed.

In the end, Kostin kindly noted that the “anti-inflationary measures” of the Central Bank: “increasing the rate, limiting loans, including consumer loans” are slowing down the development of banks.

“We hope that the Central Bank will make monetary policy less strict (after inflation goes down – Ed.), and maybe even better, softer,” said the VTB director.

“Here we must also be very careful with kindness,” the president immediately replied.

The Kremlin does not need high inflation before the March elections, since most voters do not like it.