Obliged to help with mobilization: German banks also affected

German and other European banks that are still active in Russia, as well as their Russian subsidiaries, face a dilemma: they run the risk of becoming the Putin regime’s henchman in forcibly recruiting soldiers for the Ukraine war.

Because that’s what the mobilization law provides for, which Russia’s State Duma recently passed, as the organization alliance Business for Ukraine has warned.
The Russian subsidiary of the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has already received a corresponding letter from the central bank: Raiffeisenbank Russia should appoint employees who are “essential, so to speak,” RBI spokeswoman Ingrid Ditz reported to Tagesspiegel Background.

“It was sent to all systemically important banks, including Raiffeisenbank Russia. We know such a list and a request for such a list and we have done that,” she said.

The bank has already moved jobs from Russia to other countries. Statement from Credit Suisse

The new mobilization law – Article 9 of the Federal Law Number 31-FZ – obliges companies to “carry out military registration of personnel if at least one of the employees is conscripted”.