Russia continues to find loopholes to circumvent sanctions; Swiss banks came in handy.

Some Swiss banks are ready to work with rubles, although in 2023, due to the tightening of service rules, customers of Swiss banks with Russian passports faced the threat of having their accounts blocked if they paid taxes to the Russian Federation or had a business in that country.

This year, banks began to close customers’ accounts with Russian passports. However, clients of the 10 largest Swiss banks are still able to not only keep their accounts but also to transfer rubles to them. In the case of one of the banks, it is possible to transfer rubles if the amount is over $10M, but such transfers take place only with special prior approval. After the transfer to the bank, rubles are exchanged for foreign currency at the exchange rate, and the bank takes a commission of up to 0.4% of the transaction amount.

Through this mechanism, the Russian manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft Yakovlev, which produces Su-30 fighters and Yak-130 training and combat aircraft, has purchased almost $500M in military equipment abroad since 2022.