See Kyiv Post photographer Volodymyr Petrov’s photos outside Russia Sberbank in Kyiv on March 13.
Ukrainian activists, who are continuing their protest near the head office of the Russian Sberbank in Kyiv, say they won’t leave the site until Russian banks leave Ukraine.
“We will stay here until the full victory,” one of the protesters, Yuriy Rakhova, told the Kyiv Post.
Despite Russia’s war against Ukraine in Donbas that over three years has claimed 10,000 lives, as many as five Russian-owned banks still operate in Ukraine. Russia also remains the main economic partner of Ukraine. Last year, Ukraine exported goods to Russia worth $3.5 billion and imported goods worth $5.1 billion.
Russia is also the largest investor in Ukraine. In 2016, Russia invested $1.67 billion in Ukraine – 38 percent of the country’s total foreign direct investment, according to the data released by the State Statistics Service on March 1.
Rakhova, 27, says he has spent almost the entire week near Sberbank. He was among the activists, who walled up the entrance to the bank with concrete bricks on March 13. Protesters also blocked other entrances to the bank with barbed wire and sandbags. Police did not interfere.
The move was initiated by the National Corps political party. The party is headed by Andriy Biletskyi, a Ukrainian independent lawmaker and a former commander of the Azov Battalion.
Blocking of the bank followed the announcement made by Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov on March 7. He said that Sberbank recognized passports illegally issued by Kremlin-led separatists in the occupied territories, and urged Ukraine’s National Bank to sanction Sberbank.
Sanctions
Sberbank’s press service issued a letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on March 14, asking him to react to the blockade of the bank’s office. The bank noted that more than 2,000 of Ukrainian citizens worked at Sberbank, and that it provided services to more than a million of Ukrainians.
The next day Sberbank limited the amount of cash a client can withdraw during one day to Hr 30,000 ($1,100).
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council decided on March 15 to impose sanctions on five Russian banks that operate in Ukraine: Sberbank, VS Bank, VTB Bank, BM Bank and Prominvest Bank. The sanctions forbid the mentioned banks to withdraw assets from Ukraine if the mother bank benefits from the operation.
Poroshenko signed the ruling of the National Security and Defense Council on March 16. The sanctions will remain in force for one year.
Russia’s Sberbank said it was “disappointed” with this “discriminatory” and “politically motivated” decision.
A matter of time
Rakhova, as well as other protesters, is also not happy with the sanctions, but for the opposite reason.
“We are not satisfied with these half-measures,” he told the Kyiv Post. “We want these banks to stop working on Ukraine’s territory. Completely.”
Kyiv activists were followed by their supporters in other Ukrainian cities. Similar protests took place in Dnipro and Ternopil, with right-wing parties Svoboda and Right Sector joining the National Corps.
Protesters in Kyiv feel support from other cities, as well as from residents of Kyiv, says Rakhova.
“People who are passing by praise us, saying it was long overdue,” he said.
At least 10 protesters stay near the blocked bank overnight. They sleep in the tent and gather around the burning barrel to keep warm.
“We think we will succeed and get what we want,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
