Nabiullina and Gref wanted to dissuade Putin from war
Head of Sberbank in Russia German Count and Russia Chairman of the bank Elvira Nabiullina About a month before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine Vladimir Putinof the war Russia tried to convey their concerns about the “disastrous consequences” for the economy.
The Financial Times newspaper wrote about this with reference to sources.
The article is titled “How Putin’s Technocrats Saved the Economy to Serve the War.”
The FT claims that Gref and Nabiullina met Putin in person at his residence in Novo-Ogoryova and gave him a 29-page presentation on the possible consequences of war.
This document stated that in case of war, the Western countries Russia they will impose sanctions that will “set back the economy by decades”.
It is said that Gref warned Putin that the GDP will decrease by 30 percent in 2 years and the standard of living of Russians will drop sharply.
Even if they find courage in themselves…
According to FT sources Putin Grefin interrupted and asked what could be done to prevent “the worst consequences”?
But in response to this question, neither the head of Sberbank nor the head of the Bank of Russia could justify the warning not to start escalation in Ukraine.
The source said that “although they found the courage to reach a meeting with Putin, they could not convince Putin to refrain from war.”
FT writes that Putin did not inform the participants of this meeting about their plans, and they learned about the start of the war on “television”.
Newspaper claims that the technocrats are shocked that the president is not listening to them. The source said:
“I’ve never seen Gref like this. He lost himself completely and was in a state of shock.”
The source called Graff “a man of peace” and said “he would always be in ‘Silicon Valley’.”
He said that Gref is now completely out of sight.
They stayed at their posts
Nevertheless, neither Gref nor Nabiullina resigned from their posts.
According to FT, on the contrary, they did everything they could to ensure that the Russian economy could withstand unprecedented sanctions.
Gref and Nabiullina have yet to comment on the FT article.
Gref is on the sanctions lists of almost all Western countries.