By Max Hammer, Human Rights Campaigner, BankTrack

Last month, Italy’s UniCredit made a surprise announcement. The international bank with the second-largest remaining Russian presence had found a buyer for its Russian unit – or, more accurately, for most of it. The unit, the bank announced, would be split into two separate businesses: one smaller unit, focused on handling international payments in dollars and euros for its remaining Russia-based clients; and one larger unit, handling the rest of UniCredit’s remaining loan, leasing, investment and other financial activities. The smaller part is to remain under the Italian banking umbrella, while the larger part will be sold to an unnamed UAE-based investor for an undisclosed sum.

The news marks a rare shock to Russia’s international banking space. For several years, the banks remaining in Russia following the illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine have struggled to make good on their pledges to exit the Russian market. The barriers are twofold. For one, the Russian government requires express presidential approval for any potential sale and forces sky-high discounts on sale agreements that do go ahead. These roadblocks are compounded by the second difficulty: the field of potential buyers is narrow, as most would-be Russian candidates have already come under Western sanctions.

Combined, so the banks argue, these factors have made selling their Russian subsidiaries all but impossible. After a slate of early exits immediately following the war, most of banks still operating in Russia have stalled for years: ING abandoned a half-completed sale in April after failing to secure necessary approvals, Raiffeisen Bank International has opted for a protracted and incomplete business reduction strategy while delaying a full exit, and Hungary’s OTP has even chosen to quietly expand its business in Russia in recent years. In the meantime, these same banks continue to supply vital services – including the handling of international payments – to Putin’s war economy

Against this background, UniCredit’s announcement is a welcome one. It demonstrates that commercial banks are in fact still capable of pulling back from Putin’s war economy. In previous months, UniCredit had already taken decisive steps towards accelerating its Russia wind-down: it abandoned a legal challenge to the ECB over an order to shrink Russian loan portfolios, sold its leasing assets and parted ways with senior executives, and just this month closed all but one of its branches in Moscow. After years of progressively scaling back while refusing to eat the losses required to make a full exit, these steps show the bank is serious about taking matters into its own hands and finally quitting the Russian market, displaying leadership that other banks can and should learn from.

A welcome move – but what about remedy?

More pressingly, this arrangement will substantially reduce the material contributions that UniCredit continues to make to Russia’s war economy. UniCredit reportedly aims to complete the deal in early 2027; if this deadline holds, UniCredit will finally (and partially) make good on a pledge to leave Russia first made five years prior. In that time, UniCredit helped stabilise Russia’s war economy as one of just two “systemically important” foreign banks (with Raiffeisen) – providing liquidity, keeping Russia connected with the outside world at a time when most Russian banks came under sanctions, and contributing more than €650m in tax revenues to the Kremlin’s war coffers.

Belatedly quitting Russia does not erase nor remedy UniCredit’s role in aiding Russia’s war economy. If the bank is serious about repairing the damage caused, it should consider its potential responsibility to provide remedy to the Ukrainian people.

A parietal exit is an incomplete exit

That celebration, however, still comes with a major caveat: UniCredit is not fully quitting Russia. The bank has taken a unique approach to the conundrum of how to sell its Russian unit while requiring approval from the Kremlin – which has a vested interest in ensuring banks with access to the international SWIFT payment network remain present in Russia. By selling off the majority of its banking business, but keeping its international payments arm in place, UniCredit intends to continue providing the Russian economy with that SWIFT access. This will likely make it easier to progress a sale of the Russian unit, but at a time when most major Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT, it also means that UniCredit will continue to operate a window between Russia and the outside world.

By facilitating the flow of dollars and euros in and out of Russia (UniCredit has stopped processing payments in other currencies), UniCredit continues to enable Russian businesses – and international businesses operating in Russia – to transact with the outside world. These international connections enable Russia to keep pumping fossil fuels into Europe, for example, and allow international businesses to delay their exits from the Russian market. At a time when economic pressure is critical to deprive the Russian economy of the resources needed to continue waging war on Ukraine, UniCredit’s payment services keep a pressure valve open that must desperately be closed.

UniCredit has substantially reduced the volume of international payments it handles in Russia, and bank representatives confirmed that the medium-term goal is to wind down this payment business completely. But the bank remains reluctant to set a target for this wind-down.

Regulatory roadblocks in Russia may indeed prove complicated, but four years after the full-scale invasion, critics may rightfully ask why the payment business has not already been wound down – and why UniCredit is still unable to provide clarity on when these payment pipelines will be fully shut down. As BankTrack noted in an April 2026 joint paper with B4Ukraine and the KSE Institute, Raiffeisen Bank International continues to leave several wind-down options on the table in Russia, several of which could substantially reduce long-term risks despite their short-term financial costs. UniCredit has a responsibility to explore whether similar options are available, even if they may prove immediately costly to the bank.

What’s next?

Questions also remain about the sale process. As the B4Ukraine coalition noted in a recent paper, any exit from the Russian market must be handled responsibly to ensure that valuable resources do not end up in the hands of actors who may use them to commit violations of human rights and/or international law. So far, UniCredit has not revealed the identity of the prospective buyer of its Russian business – noting only that it is based in the UAE, a notorious hub for Russian shell companies. And it has not confirmed what human rights due diligence steps are being taken in connection with the sale. As the sale progresses, it will be critical for the bank to take additional steps to ensure transparency and human rights considerations are integrated into the process.

Caveats aside, UniCredit’s progress towards a sale of its Russian subsidiary provides a desperately needed shakeup to Russia’s international banking sector that other banks still operating there must learn from. If the deal goes through, it will demonstrate what BankTrack and other civil society organisations have insisted on for years – that leaving Russia is still possible and is still a decision that ultimately lies in the hands of the banks operating there. It remains to UniCredit to take that lesson to its conclusion and quit the Russian market once and for all.

BankTrack reached out to UniCredit for a response. They did not receive one.