One Of The Last EU Banks To Leave Russia

UniCredit decided to liquidate the business instead of selling it.

Italian group UniCredit has refused to sell Unicredit Bank in Russia and is instead going to liquidate it, informed sources told Kommersant. According to them, this option is more favorable, as UniCredit would receive about 10% of the bank's capital in the event of a sale due to the discount and mandatory payments set by the Russian authorities. "Now all possible assets are being sold, the network is being wound down, the retail business in the regions has already been wound down, the corporate business is also being wound down, staff cuts are underway, including client managers with large payouts," said one of the publication's interlocutors.

After the liquidation is completed, UniCredit Bank's capital balances will be frozen on C-type accounts, but in the future they can be used to exchange them for blocked Russian assets abroad, lawyers clarified in a conversation with Kommersant. In July 2025, a court in Italy ordered UniCredit to withdraw from the Russian market within nine months. In November, the group's CEO Andrea Orchel said the bank was making "galactic efforts" to comply with international sanctions on Russian business. He said the bank was acting cautiously to avoid losing its Russian unit, which is valued at about 3.8 billion euros. Unicredit Bank is one of the last European banks to continue operating in Russia after the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine.

In an investor presentation on its 2025 results, UniCredit reported a reduction in the Russian unit's operating activities. Its cross-border payments have narrowed from more than €25 billion in March 2022 to less than €5 billion in December 2025. The bank's loan and deposit portfolios fell from €6.9 billion to €600 million and from €7.8 billion to €500 million, respectively. The total number of employees at the end of 2025 amounted to 1.56 thousand, which is almost 40% less than a year earlier.

After the war began, UniCredit, like other Western banks, announced plans to get rid of Russian business. However, few managed to sell "subsidiaries": to the French group Societe Generale, Dutch ING and American Goldman Sachs. Last spring, a UAE company was offered to buy UniCredit's Russian subsidiary. However, the deal hung in the air due to concerns that Russian interests might be behind the buyers.

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