Just quick hit about a WSJ article that’s agonizingly paywalled. Consider this a plea for a WSJ subscriber to diary this for us. This is what’s visible to non-subscribers:

Deutsche Bank in Late 2016 Raced to Shed Loan It Made to Russian Bank VTB

German lender sold a chunk of the loan to Russian financial institution Alfa Bank but Citigroup took a pass, documents and people familiar with the matter indicate

Deutsche Bank AG, seeking to slash its exposure to Russia in late 2016, scrambled to shed a $600 million loan it had outstanding to VTB Group, a large Russian state-owned bank, according to documents and people familiar with the funding.

The German lender sold $300 million of the loan to another Russian financial institution, Alfa Bank, in December 2016; Deutsche wasn’t able to sell the rest of the loan, and VTB paid it back in August 2017, the documents show and the people said.