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EU sanctions on nearly 100 Russian banks disrupt key money-transfer routes used by Russians who left after the full-scale invasion

Source: Meduza
Alamy / Vida Press
  • The European Union published lists on July 23 of people and organizations facing restrictions under its 21st package of sanctions against Russia. The lists named 48 individuals and 170 organizations, 94 of them banks, including Ak Bars, Wildberries Bank, DOM.RF, MTS Bank, Ozon Bank, Pochta Bank, Tochka, Rosselkhozbank, Uralsib, Tsifra Bank, and Yandex Bank. The restrictions also hit the Moscow Exchange and Platezhny Tsentr, a Novosibirsk-based company that operates the Zolotaya Korona money-transfer system. The Council of the European Union called it “the largest batch of individual listings of the last four years.”
  • In most cases, the EU justified the sanctions by saying the banks provide “substantial revenue” to the Russian government, which is responsible for annexing Crimea and waging war on Ukraine. For 26 of the institutions, the EU also cited their participation in a pilot project to launch the digital ruble — a new form of Russian currency meant to circulate alongside cash and non-cash rubles. Its nationwide rollout is set to begin September 1, 2026, starting with the largest banks and expanding to all of the country’s banks within two years. It remains unclear whether the sanctions will disrupt those plans.
  • Soon after the sanctions list came out, the Telegram channel Kod Durova reported that Zolotaya Korona had suspended transfers “to Georgia and a number of other countries.” Other media outlets confirmed the suspension and reported that transfers to Kazakhstan and Belarus had stopped working too. Only Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan remain on the service’s list of available countries. Azerbaijan had been available just hours earlier, before it, too, dropped off the list. Tsifra Bank has also suspended transfers to Kazakhstan, and clients of Kazakhstan’s Freedom Bank received similar notification about it. A correspondent for the Russian business outlet RBC verified that such a transfer is no longer possible.
  • Neither company has officially commented on the situation so far. Zolotaya Korona’s support team said only that “some transfer destinations are currently unavailable.” Tsifra Bank’s app states that “maintenance work is being carried out on the Kazakhstan transfer service,” adding that the feature will not work until at least the end of the day on July 24. Georgia and Kazakhstan are among the most popular destinations for Russians who left after the full-scale war began, and many of them rely heavily on Zolotaya Korona and Freedom Bank to send money.
  • The new sanctions list also hits two of the three banks that issue Chinese UnionPay cards — the only international payment system that has kept operating in Russia since the war began. The restrictions target Rosselkhozbank and Center-invest, which connected to UnionPay less than two weeks ago and had been expected to start issuing cards by the end of July. It remains unclear whether the two banks will keep working with the Chinese payment system; sanctions have previously forced banks to halt card issuance, as was the case with Gazprombank. Asian-Pacific Bank is the only UnionPay-linked financial institution to have avoided sanctions so far.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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