Chairman and CEO Andrei Kostin, VTB is preparing itself for a global business. By that, apparently, the owners are also willing and compromising bank. VTB is going to leave London. It was a response to the desire of British citizens to leave the EU (the so-called "brekzit") - adjust their plans for making and VTB.

"Yesterday we planned to expand our staff in London", - admitted VTB CFO Herbert Moos. And now he's looking for a place for the new headquarters of the European unit of VTB. The basis of this division is the Moscow Narodny Bank - a credit institution established in Moscow before the Revolution with a branch in London. After the revolution, Moscow Narodny Bank called Moscow Narodny Bank Limited has become an important element in the European credit market, which also served as the Soviet-specific task. The results of this practice are sometimes very unexpected. For example, the transformation of London into an international financial center to a large extent contributed to the decision to create a closed Mosnarbank dollars to Europe market, which has become a reference center and artUK face. Now VTB is looking for a new site.

Director of the Vienna market

While on a sign at VTB three cities of the Old World. And if the two of them - Frankfurt and Paris - are predictable, then Vienna in this list looks unusual. Never in the history of this city is not claimed to be a financial hub. But successfully played the role of "capital" of the Cold War. It is here that the key meetings, exchanges were to shady deals and create a chain of front companies that can cover up the real owners and their interests.

The fact that VTB is seriously considering Vienna as a new platform for European expansion, has become an occasion for the announcement of Vienna itself to the role of financial capital. Bankers and businessmen "in mufti", representing both private and public interests - all these attributes Andrei Kostin as a diplomat of the Soviet era, are familiar. And, apparently, the current move is consistent with the objectives of the oldest.

On hook

The fact that VTB decides not just credit but also very specific tasks politith properties, many assumed. But this year, we have been able to learn everyone apparently. The reason was mediavoyna declared by WikiLeaks supporters of the US Democratic Party, who accused him of censorship of published materials. Citing an example of this "cleaning", and if you trust the site authoritative digital media corporation The Daily Dot, you can learn how from "Syrian collection" missing document on the transfer of two billion euros for the VTB account from the accounts of the Syrian Central Bank Treasury. "Syrian Collection" - more than two million documents stolen from the presidential administration of Bashar Assad. All of them appeared on the WikiLeaks website in the summer of 2012.

Attentive readers interested in the circumstances under which it became aware of this transfer to € 2 billion, made in the midst of preparing the introduction of sanctions. The document on the transfer of this "suddenly" surfaced in June 2013, when the Internet was published chat correspondence two kiberaktivistov, who discussed a letter allegedly sent by October 26, 2011 to the address in your account [email protected] VTB transfer information VTB accounts insheoboznachennoy amount. It seems that the letter also contained a request to open an account in rubles, VTB. The sender of the Treasury called the head of the Syrian Central Bank Salim Tuba (Salim Toubaji), and recipients, apparently employees of VTB Group Avakov Sergey and Andrey Galkin.

Correspondence allegedly conducted at a time when already hard to impose restrictions and sanctions on the activities of Syrian officials, and it became obvious that the withdrawal of money through VTB could just be their salvation. Especially since the euro were converted into rubles, thus becoming inaccessible to Western inspectors. Sanctions finally introduced in early 2012, and almost immediately afterwards in a little-known Bulgarian edition coming out in English, published an article in which, in principle, the whole story is presented with evrov transfer, but the document has not been published. Thus, the "attentive readers' information was brought to the attention, and the publication of the document in the chat can be regarded as a control shot.

In the history of the likely "sink" Syrian relations VTB has another remarkablee fact. Both IM conversation participant were FBI informer, who went on to serve in the bodies, trying to solve their own problems. In other words, the appearance of the document on the Internet could be (and probably was) authorized. Regardless of what motivated the publishers of the document, "the editors" of WikiLeaks, to eliminate it from the collection, as well as "whistleblowers" the Syrian leader, the net result of all history can be considered the fact that all the moves in Syria VTB were recorded. It is expected that in 2011 a group of "revolutionary hackers" from among the opponents of Bashar Assad to control all communications authorities and their contractors. It is quite possible that the most interesting of them originally were not included in the collection passed to publishers of WikiLeaks. They just still waiting in the wings.