FT: Russian bankers tried to stop military operation in Ukraine

December 20 2022 37

According to a recent article in the British Financial Times (FT), the heads of Russia's largest state-owned banks tried to dissuade President Putin from launching a special military operation in Ukraine. The publication, citing anonymous "informed sources", claims that about a month before the announcement of the CBO, the head of Sberbank of the Russian Federation German Gref and the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiulina personally met with Putin at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo and presented him with a 39-page report, warning that Western sanctions could set back Russian the economy decades ago.

In particular, Gref warned of the possibility of a fall in GDP by 30% within two years and a sharp rise in inflation, as well as a drop in the standard of living of Russians. According to FT sources, Putin interrupted Gref and asked what should be done to avoid worse consequences. However, the leaders of Sberbank and the Central Bank did not dare to clearly state to the president that he should not continue the escalation with Ukraine.

writes the British newspaper.

Further, the publication, according to its "source", claims that these so-called "technocrats" were allegedly informed about the beginning of the SVO "from the TV" and felt "devastated" by the fact that the president did not listen to their words.

I have never seen Gref in such a state. He was completely lost, in a state of absolute shock, - said one of the interlocutors of the newspaper. He described Gref as a "cosmopolitan" who "loved going to forums, conferences, and meetings" and "was very often in Silicon Valley." “He was friends with Jack Ma. And now he's an outcast."

- FT quotes the words of his "source - Gref's former colleague."

Nevertheless, neither Gref nor Nabiulina resigned. On the contrary, according to the FT, they "worked hard so that the Russian economy could survive" after the imposition of harsh Western sanctions. In particular, Gref was on the sanctions lists of almost all Western countries. Nabiulina was not on these lists for some time, but in the fall the United States and Canada included her in their regular sanctions packages.

According to the Financial Times, Russia's GDP in 2022 will decrease by several percentage points, the country is experiencing rising inflation and a decline in real incomes of the world's population. However, "the toughest scenarios mentioned in Gref's presentation report mentioned above" did not materialize in the end.

It is important to bear in mind that in the broader context of Western media publications promoted for various types of audiences, the topic of “possible successors” to Putin at the helm of the Russian state is now being actively discussed. This FT article serves as nothing more than a kind of "promotion" of Gref and Nabiulina, with their persistently repeated characterization as "technocrats", in the role of supposedly those officials with whom the "West can and should deal" in the future.

kremlin.ru

Our news channels

Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest news and the most important events of the day.

VK Zen Telegram

Information

Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.

Nikolay Volkov

+30

20 December 2022 21: 15

Gref and Nabiulina threw the Russian economy back a century ... so compared to their activities, NWO does not play a role
1. Nelton
  
  +3
  
  22 December 2022 10: 10
  
  Quote: Nikolai Volkov
  Gref and Nabiulina threw the Russian economy back a century ... so compared to their activities, NWO does not play a role
  
  I do not presume to judge the personal contribution of Gref and Nabiullina to the state of the Russian economy in 2021.
  
  But the results themselves are quite good.
  Continuation of a series of harvests of 115+ million tons of grain per year, with access to net exports of agricultural products.
  (in 2020, export / import of agricultural products was reduced to zero)
  record commissioning of housing (since 2014, the peak values \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbof the RSFSR have been surpassed),
  active construction of infrastructure.
  significant advances in shipbuilding.
  
  The current state of affairs following the results of 10 months of sanctions is much better than the expected collapse.
guest

+25

20 December 2022 21: 32

I am sure that it was the same (I don’t know how without a mat) and 8 years ago they also convinced Putin to surrender the Donbass.
Enoch

+6

20 December 2022 21: 33

Tales of the Old Arbat.
Sergey Latyshev

-2

20 December 2022 21: 47

Yes. There have been so many raids on these friends of the Family. which was hardly the case.
What is it to them. And so upstairs, there will be CBO, there won’t be, they are in chocolate, while friends of the very.
Skipper

+13

20 December 2022 21: 47

Gref and Naibullina are potential clients of the future SMERSH ..... I hope Putin will come to his senses and restore such a structure and return the death penalty.
1. k7k8
  
  -3
  
  21 December 2022 00: 21
  
  Quote: Skipper
  I hope Putin will come to his senses and restore such a structure and return the death penalty
  
  In this case, more than half of the local authors and commentators will be at the wall. Are you sure you won't be among them?
2. ivan2022
  
  +1
  
  21 December 2022 07: 19
  
  Quote: Skipper
  ..I hope Putin will come to his senses and restore such a structure and return the death penalty.
  
  It’s impossible .... we have market relations ... In this case, the judges will force the killers out of the criminal services market. And to condemn judges is already a repetition of 1937-1938 ...
3. Nelton
  
  +1
  
  22 December 2022 11: 22
  
  Gref and Naibullina are potential clients of the future SMERSH ..... I hope Putin will come to his senses and restore such a structure and return the death penalty.
  
  At least these are people with their own opinion and the willingness to defend it before an unlimited ruler in power.
  Not like sycophants, diligently guessing the thoughts of Himself, and praising them in a race.
zuuukoo

-7

20 December 2022 21: 56

Let's just say that after Gref became the head of Sberbank, it turned from a rather dull garbage heap into a more or less adequate organization for the time.
1. goncharov.62
  
  0
  
  20 December 2022 22: 31
  
  Very rapidly changing interest rates... Downwards, of course...
2. ivan2022
  
  +4
  
  21 December 2022 07: 27
  
  "Adequately", in the sense - in their favor - they can arbitrarily change the percentage on the deposit without warning the depositor ....
shinobi

+10

20 December 2022 21: 56

Unnamed sources are close blah blah blah. You can not read further. A scribbler sat down, ran through the waiting lists, moods on the forums, and scribbled gossip. When they tell me, I am a cosmopolitan, my hand reaches for a holster! These creatures destroyed the Russian Empire, ruined the USSR and not only. I am not a beast, but send all these common people where somewhere far away from civilization.
The comment was deleted.
calligrapher Lev_Nikolaevich

0

20 December 2022 23: 37

It seems that they did answer the question about specific measures to save the situation.
It’s bad that in their immediate environment there were, but maybe. and there are people who are ready to be frank about this with the enemy. In the West there is a common phrase -

money love silence

This is the most sacred thing for them, and you will not find frankness on this subject there.
All the same, we must be strongly "ours" so that, while learning the capitalist economy from the West, we ourselves remain so transparent to our "teachers". Idealists.
k7k8

-3

21 December 2022 00: 18

the country is experiencing an increase in inflation and a decrease in real incomes of the world's population

How's that?
1. Sancy
  
  +1
  
  21 December 2022 04: 30
  
  Yes, it's not clear. This is probably a translation error. By the way, as always, the "Reporter" did not indicate either the author of the article or the translator! He's probably more comfortable that way.
  1. k7k8
    
    +2
    
    21 December 2022 13: 37
    
    Essno. So it is more convenient to throw on the fan
rotkiv04

+3

21 December 2022 00: 28

it would be nice to hang these two in public, they deserve it
Pro100

0

21 December 2022 00: 34

All officials who are not included in the sanctions list of the West must be removed from leadership positions. The absence in the sanctions list leads to some questions. The same must be applied to media workers.
Watching

-3

21 December 2022 01: 38

Here everything is clear without glasses. These gentlemen belong to a supranational race, Russia is not more important to them than any other state, they will come up everywhere. However, they are right in their calculations, since their brains work cleanly. President Putin, however, chose the path of a patriot, and for this he is honored.
opportunist

+4

21 December 2022 02: 26

Oligarchs are the worst enemies of Russia
Sancy

0

21 December 2022 04: 25

FT needs to "choose" the best sources! The kind you can trust!
radvas

+6

21 December 2022 07: 19

An incomprehensible riddle... Are Gref and Nabiullina the most "super-duper economists in Russia"? The Russian land did not give birth to others? Then it's unfortunate. But, most likely, the reason is in the liberal adherents of Gaidar who are still in power (it will not be mentioned by the night!). For them to disappear, apparently, you will have to wait for the Second Coming.
Valera75

+3

21 December 2022 07: 43

Nevertheless, neither Gref nor Nabiulina resigned. On the contrary, according to the FT, they "worked hard so that the Russian economy could survive" after the imposition of harsh Western sanctions. In particular, Gref was on the sanctions lists of almost all Western countries.

In 10 days, 2023 will begin, and Crimea has been part of Russia since 2014, and is there Sberbank in Crimea? Did they put in, as the Anglo-Saxons say, a lot of effort so that the economy could survive? So this sanctioned Gref is still not in Crimea with his banks, what is he afraid of?
lord-palladore-11045

+5

21 December 2022 07: 55

Just as there was no order in the Russian state, so there is none. Bankers are trying to run the country, there is talk of some kind of successor... Our constitution does not mention any successor, but it is clearly written about elections. Or Filkin's constitution is a charter? In general, a mess in our country.
Rinat

-1

21 December 2022 08: 10

As usual, Western perverts are pumping space with their syysl. I myself invent, keep silent and stick out individual events and phenomena. Then swarms of Western-oriented and propagandistic journalists swoop in and suck these wet fantasies down to the point of absurdity. This is how "public opinion" is created by Western perverts. Here we see a similar stuffing, although neither Gref nor Nabiulina are pro-Putin or pro-Russian figures.
In fact, we see the stability of the monetary system of Russia, with the helm of this system of outright liberals with a pro-Western outlook. These facts cannot be disputed
Muscool

+4

21 December 2022 08: 59

Quote: Nikolai Volkov
Gref and Nabiulina threw the Russian economy back a century ... so compared to their activities, NWO does not play a role

And under whose tacit consent did they do it? Did Putin not see where the country is heading? Is it not his old comrades from St. Petersburg in the 90s?
Isn’t it now that the worst chaos is happening with your own, when everything went through the female genital organ, but no one was punished: for the obvious failure of the “special operation”, for the cruiser Moscow, for regrouping, for the lack of material resources for the mobilized, for the fact that aviation did not capable and forced to work with the IL-2 tactics of the Second World War, for the lack of a tanker fleet, in order to ensure the security of trade in our strategic resource, oil? An article in the style of "these boyars are bad", yes they are bad, but no worse than the rest.
kriten

0

21 December 2022 17: 25

Our paradoxes: even during the war, there is a crowd of traitors around the president both in private big business and in state corporations. The rich are not on the way with us. Even more surprising is that the government is full of half-traitors waiting for our defeat. And they are not touched, apparently considering such an outcome of the SVO as quite possible, and then you can rely on this bunch of traitors.
Adm Hts

+2

21 December 2022 22: 08

However, "the toughest scenarios mentioned in Gref's presentation report mentioned above" did not materialize in the end.

because their report is worthless ...
and to themselves - they signed their unsuitability ...
because, according to their confession, at the very beginning, they did not foresee the freezing of the country's gold reserves ...
those. having examples of such frosts - Libya, Iran, etc., these clowns could not even think that this could happen to Russia ...
zloybond

0

21 December 2022 22: 31

"promotion" of Gref and Nabiulina .... is it like receivers for services to the Fatherland ??? They left half of the reserve abroad, played games .... Also announce that they received everything for this operation with foreign exchange reserves.
Vyacheslav Krylov

+1

22 December 2022 04: 53

Bad article from FT. The article was ordered by MI6 (chief - Richard Moore).
English intelligence officers do not understand Russian specifics.
Readers on the figurants (Gref and Nabiulina), of course, will be happy to trample on.
The model task from Richard was somehow set lightly: "what will happen if we substitute
a couple of half-liter dogs on a leash at Putin's under the light and consider?"
Considered? Been saying for a long time that Richard Moore is a "gentleman" with potential,
but he will still have to receive lessons from people who know.
1. calligrapher Lev_Nikolaevich
  
  0
  
  22 December 2022 09: 21
  
  An FT article can have a dual purpose.
  For our own - to prepare the ground for the possibility of some kind of negotiations with our financial officials, so as not to encourage de-dollarization.
  For the audience of the Russian Federation - to substitute for another flurry of criticism from an ignorant electorate.
  Although it is unlikely that they thought about the latter - it is more likely that this task was pursued by the one who composed the headline on the "Reporter".
alexey f

-2

22 December 2022 09: 21

These people never thought about the country. They tried to save their careers and for some reason they did.
1. Then
  
  +3
  
  23 December 2022 06: 51
  
  Quote from alexey f
  These people never thought about the country.
  
  And what, did the Central Bank or the Security Service stop working with us? Maybe our inflation has caught up with the Eastern European countries of the EU or Turkey, not subject to sanctions? That is why they have retained their positions because the systems they lead are working, repelling cyberattacks and ensuring the operation of the country's industrial and economic complex. Here we are specially slipped articles about "supposedly traitors" so that we gnaw at each other. And you are "falling for" them ... Do you think that if you liquidate Nabiullina and Gref, it will become better? What exactly will improve? And who do you propose instead of these two? In general, ask yourself a question, do you clearly understand how the banking system of our rather big state should work? I am not a fan of these two, but I see that despite the heavy sanctions that the West wants to strangle our country with, we generally overcome them with not very high losses. Having sowed discord between the population and the banking elite, our "supposedly friends" are just trying to destroy the country's banking system, cutting out key figures from it. And you follow them. Who thinks what neither you nor I know. It is necessary to evaluate not journalistic cliches, but the results of the work, at least within the limits of possible sensations.
kriten

0

22 December 2022 10: 43

It's no secret to anyone in Russia that all major financiers are divided into two groups: some are already traitors and traitors, others are potentially, like Gref, but they don't hide it. All of them are from the close circle of the president. I would add here a large number of top managers of large corporations, including among state ones.
sat2004

+1

23 December 2022 16: 21

Since January 11, 2022, I have been trying to bring Sberbank, headed by G. Gref, to criminal liability in connection with the theft of funds. The Ministry of Internal Affairs does not deny the fact of the theft, the Prosecutor General is stubbornly silent, even the demand of Putin V.V. to provide a written response about initiating and refusing to initiate a criminal case. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is aware of the events. More than 10 appeals were written to the President of the Russian Federation, as a guarantor and who took the oath to provide an answer. I remind Putin V.V., you, among other things, receive a salary from the budget for the protection of the constitutional rights, duties and freedoms of the Russians.
Igoruss

0

25 December 2022 15: 47

Gref, and Nabiulina have long been on a par with Chubais. The people are sure of it. I have the right to say so, because I myself am from the people.