Raiffeisen Bank Aval

War Sponsor According to the NACP and Loans to Mobilized Invaders

In March 2023, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) included the parent group RBI in the list of international sponsors of the war: after the full-scale invasion, the bank not only continued to operate in Russia but officially recognized the so-called "DPR" and "LPR" in its documents. In addition, RBI's Russian branch granted credit holidays to Russians mobilized to participate in the war against Ukraine. The United States initiated an investigation of RBI for possible complicity in Russian aggression; following this, the group’s shares fell by 7%. Previously, Austria achieved a temporary exclusion of the bank from the blacklist, blocking new EU sanctions against Russia as a concession for this compromise. Ukraine insisted on sanctions against RBI's top executives — Chairman Johann Strobl and Chief Operating Officer Andreas Gschwenter, including them in the "War and Sanctions" list.

Bank Chairman — NABU Suspect and Bail Posted by the Bank Itself

In November 2019, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) detained the Chairman of Raiffeisen Bank Aval, Oleksandr Pysaruk — along with six other individuals — on suspicion of embezzling UAH 1.2 billion of a stabilization loan from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), issued in 2014 to VAB Bank owned by Oleh Bakhmatyuk. Raiffeisen Bank Aval itself posted bail of UAH 5 million for its chairman. The investigation established that the NBU issued the loan to VAB Bank even though the latter did not provide all necessary documents, and the value of collateral — real estate — was overestimated by almost 25 times. A month later, the bank was declared insolvent and liquidated. NABU completed the investigation — nine NBU officials and VAB Bank leadership became subjects of the case.