A friend of mine (a Crimean migrant) who currently lives on the territory of Ukraine, told the story of his mother-in-law who got a ‘present’ from Russia in the form of Toyota Corolla car at the cost of USD 23’000. (in Russian)

Everything looked very simple. Mother-in-law who lives in Crimea bought an automobile on credit in 2013. She was regularly paying the Ukrainian bank before the Crimean ‘referendum’, then she re-registered it in the Russian Crimea because of a political situation. The result is that she possesses a new Japanese car and pays nobody.

We managed to speak with a safety department deputy director of one of the Ukrainian banks which had its bank branches on the territory of Crimea (before the Russian occupation). Our interlocutor wanted to hold back his name and the name of a bank where he works.

According to our interlocutor, once mass-meetings and the first words about the referendum with a further joining to Russia appeared, some banks immediately sold their Crimean assets to Russian buyers. The rest of bankers (including his bank) who didn’t trim their sails to the wind found themselves in a trouble. (Tass)

After the annexation of Crimea to Russia all their assets were out of reach. According to the National Bank of Ukraine’s estimates the Ukrainian banks’ losses as a result of the Crimean annexation are estimated to be UAH 22 billion. (Korrespondent)

First of all it concerns the pledge (industrial complexes, goods, land, houses, flats, automobiles and other assets which were a pledge in Ukrainian banks) on the security of which Ukrainian banks gave out the loans to the citizens.

After the disgraceful ‘referendum’ and immediate family embrace of Russia, the newly made Russians (yesterday’s citizens of Ukraine) were confused for a while. The main question: Whom should they give money back, and is it necessary to do that? The borrowers didn’t suffer from uncertainty for a long time, the Crimeans en mass started getting the Russian documents for movables and immovables which were under arrest according to the Ukrainian banks’ documents.

As a result, the “Russian” citizens of Crimea turned out to be full owners of houses, flats, lands, business, at the same time there was no need to return worth of billion loans to the Ukrainian banks! Bingo!

In addition, criminal schemes en mass were put in practice on the territory of the Russian Crimea. The ‘enterprising’ citizens, having the access to the internal information of Ukrainian banks, forged the documents for other people’s property (property of the Ukrainian citizens who were at that moment on the territory of Ukraine) and got Russian documents. After that they sold it legally with a good discount to the interested Russian buyers.

Concerning the loans given without the pledge security, some Ukrainian banks sold their investment portfolios to Russian collection agencies with a significant discount. Nevertheless, the losses of Ukrainian bankers are tremendous! “The number of bank selling spots located in Crimea as of the 1st of February 2014 was 1213 (6,3% of its total number in Ukraine). The portfolio of loans given by Ukrainian banks to borrowers from Crimea to this date makes UAH 16,6 billion, or 1,8% of a total portfolio of loans.” (Obozrevatel)

Of course, Ukrainian banks could do nothing but refer to the paragraph about losses. Although the information about Ukrainian bankers’ intentions to go to court for their ‘hard-earned’ money periodically appears in news feeds, the matter doesn’t get any further than verbal announcements. And I think it is unlikely that it will.

What do you think?

(yg,wf)