2023-09-01 18:56:39
After years of being private clients, UniCredit Bank Austria surprisingly terminated the accounts of two leading Russian investigative journalists and intelligence experts. First, in June, the account of his wife Irina Borogan, and a short time later his account, was terminated, said Andrei soldatov, who lives in British exile, to the APA and confirmed a report in the “Presse” (online edition) on Friday followingnoon.
The bank refused to provide him and his wife with information regarding the background to this decision and only reported a more specifically specified “business decision,” Soldierow explained. “We have never used the account for transfers from Russia. The receipts were exclusively fees for articles and books in the West,” said the prominent author of standard works on Soviet and Russian secret services. Since last year, Soldierov has been on a wanted list by the Russian Interior Ministry because of “fakes” regarding the Russian army. At that time, Russian banks also blocked his accounts there.
The Austrian bank always knew exactly who he and his co-author Borogan were, emphasized the journalist and said that bank employees had also been given one of their books. After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bank was provided with documents regarding the stay in England. Last winter, together with the bank, they were looking for ways to transfer money for electricity generators to the Ukraine.
When asked by APA, Bank Austria did not want to give any specific information regarding the termination of its customer relationship with Borogan and Soldierov “without formal release from banking secrecy”. “As an Austrian financial institution, UniCredit Bank Austria is obliged to fully comply with all applicable regulatory requirements from national and EU legal sources, especially with regard to financial sanctions,” emphasized a spokesman for the bank. Among other things, this includes the ban on accepting deposits in excess of EUR 100,000 from Russian citizens without a residence permit in the EU, EEA or Switzerland.
Of course, the latter should hardly refer to Borogan and soldatov. “We had separate accounts and each of us had an account balance of well under 100,000 euros,” soldatow assured on Friday evening.
Before the Borogan andSoldadom cases, no cases were known in which Austrian banks had terminated customer relationships with prominent critics of Vladimir Putin and his regime. Only people who had been sanctioned and, according to Russian information, representatives of Moscow had problems with Austrian bank accounts. Last June, for example, the Russian Foreign Ministry complained that an Austrian bank had refused to open an account for an employee of the commercial agency in Vienna.
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