The reason for the bank’s covert tactics in Crimea is Sberbank management’s hope to avoid harsher Western sanctions. Currently, the bank is on the US Department of Treasury’s Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) List and on the EU sanctions list, which restricts Sberbank’s access to the EU and US capital markets, but doesn’t include blocking the bank’s foreign assets.
As most of the world’s countries keep recognizing the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia back in 2014 led to a number of Western sanctions against Russian individuals and companies. Thus, involvement in business activities in Crimea may pose the threat of more serious sanctions for Sberbank.
The report reveals that the first mortgage agreements on the Crimean real estate to involve Sberbank were recorded in 2019, but now this type of activity has become widespread.
According to BlackSeaNews, the conditions for receiving a Crimean mortgage from Sberbank are as follows:
- getting residence registration in the territory of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, adjacent to Crimea across the Kerch Strait – there is an option of temporary registration;
- using the services of the Sberbank subsidiary “Sberbank Real Estate Center” to find real estate on the occupied peninsula and start a mortgage;
- visiting a Sberbank office in Temryuk, Krasnodar Krai for finalizing paperwork.
Registered in Moscow in July 2015, according to official records, Sberbank Real Estate Center LLC that runs the website domclick.ru is a 100% subsidiary of Sberbank and isn’t on any sanctions list yet.
As of early November 2021, the website of the Sberbank Real Estate Center had 9,249 real estate sale ads for the “Republic of Crimea” – this Russian post-annexation name for Ukraine’s territorial unit of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Additional 5,097 ads were on the company’s website for the “federal city” of Sevastopol which is considered a separate territorial unit from the rest of the peninsula.
The website allows you to apply for a Sberbank mortgage without visiting the bank’s office and to launch the application process.
“Thus, Sberbank provides grounds for strengthening the international sanctions regime against it,” BlackSeaNews suggests.
NGOs to push for sanctions on 29 Crimea-based enterprises and their 60 Russian collaborators
Further reading:
- With Crimea Platform, sanctions can become even smarter
- It is high time for Ukraine to create a domestic sanctions policy
- NGOs to push for sanctions on 29 Crimea-based enterprises
- Ukraine prepares sanctions against Austrian firm over flagship over flagship opera house in occupied Crimea
- How German companies violated sanctions to bring Dutch sea platform to luxury marina in Crimea
- Sanctions on Russia are working, but they’re not enough
- Hall of Fame | Finland denies export licence for Danfoss engines due to Crimea sanctions
- Sanctions breach suspected as Siemens & Grundfos equipment spotted at water station in occupied Crimea
- Xiaomi reportedly temporarily blocked its smartphones in Russian-occupied Crimea and other sanctioned areas
- Some call the EU sanctions regime a “paper tiger,” but that will change soon — law professor
- Russia’s occupation of Crimea led to Ukraine losing 75% of its 2013 GDP
