Raiffeisen keeps finding reasons to stay in Russia, and its Russian subsidiary keeps finding ways to serve the war machine. Schemy has now traced 26 defense-order payments through Raiffeisenbank Russia in 2024 and 2025, totaling more than 15 million rubles, roughly 180,000 dollars at the exchange rates of the time.
The Payments
The transactions carry the marker for state defense orders, which makes them part of the financial plumbing of Russia's war economy. The trail runs through Kvalitet, a private lubricants supplier feeding the Russian military-industrial complex.
Kvalitet sells lubricants to defense enterprises. Most of those buyers settle through Promsvyazbank, the anchor bank for Russia's defense sector and among the largest banks in the country. But Kvalitet also purchases materials to use in production, and in those purchase chains, Raiffeisenbank Russia appears repeatedly.
- 26 payments, all tied to state defense orders
- All processed by a bank that still belongs to Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International
- The bank still operates outside Western sanctions
The Vienna Response
Raiffeisen's head office in Vienna did not deny the payments. The bank's explanation is that Russian law prohibits it from refusing to execute domestic ruble transfers.
The convenient part: the bank cannot close. The bank cannot refuse. The bank just keeps earning.
Raiffeisen has spent more than three years promising to leave Russia. The Russian unit remains.
The payments continue. The defense-order marker does not seem to trigger any internal alarm. The excuse has not changed, and neither has the outcome.
The Stakes
PSB, the main settlement bank for these defense firms, is already bleeding. It posted a 50 billion ruble loss in the first half of the year and needs repeated state recapitalization.
Raiffeisen is not PSB. A Western bank chooses to remain part of the system that keeps those payments moving. The source material is clear, and the payments are documented. Vienna now needs a decision that matches its own stated intentions.
