The exposure would be even larger if the Erste Group, Austria’s biggest bank by assets ahead of Bank Austria and Raiffeisen, had not left Ukraine last year. It was part of an exodus from Ukraine and Russia by foreign investors discouraged by corruption and poor economic growth in those countries.

Well before Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, Raiffeisen and Bank Austria were plagued by a surge in bad loans and sinking profitability throughout Eastern Europe. Nearly a third of Raiffeisen’s approximately 1.2 billion euros worth of loans in Ukraine are classified as being in default or in arrears.

A spokesman for Raiffeisen declined to comment ahead of the release on Thursday of fourth-quarter financial results. The bank, whose shares have fallen 29 percent since Jan. 23, has scheduled a news conference in Vienna on Thursday at which Karl Sevelda, the chief executive, is likely to face intense questioning about Russia and Ukraine.

The Crimea crisis is the latest setback for the ambitions of Austrian banks to establish themselves in territory once ruled from Vienna by the Hapsburgs. Until the dynasty’s demise after World War I, its reach extended into modern-day Ukraine and included much of Eastern Europe, including territory now part of Hungary, Poland and Romania.

For lenders like Raiffeisen, founded in 1862 when the Hapsburgs still ruled, expansion to the east transformed a sleepy midsize bank in a country of 8.2 million people into a regional powerhouse.

But, in a familiar pattern, the banks dispensed credit too lavishly. In some countries, lending grew by 50 percent a year. Many of the loans were in foreign currencies. Such loans offered lower interest rates, but borrowers who were earning their pay in Hungarian forint or Ukrainian hryvnia had trouble paying their debts when their local currencies plunged in value.

The perils of the Austrian strategy became apparent in 2008 at the start of the financial crisis. Only emergency intervention by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union prevented panic among foreign investors.