Russia’s top banker has called on Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, warning that the four-year-old conflict is dragging the country into economic collapse.
German Gref, head of the state-controlled Sberbank, said ordinary Russians are increasingly feeling the economic effects of the war, which are being worsened by Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries.
“I think we are all worried about the same thing. I don’t believe there is anyone in this country whose primary concern is anything other than an end to military hostilities as soon as possible,” Gref told state TV on Tuesday, as reported by the Moscow Times.
In the same interview, Gref warned that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, is wreaking havoc on the Russian economy, with soaring interest rates and fuel shortages.
“An economy simply cannot survive for a prolonged period under the weight of the extremely high real interest rates we’re seeing today,” Gref said, attacking as “completely irrational” the Russian government’s use of monetary policy to combat inflation.
“We’ve already overcooled the economy. The rate needs to come down,” he said.
Russia’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to a two-decade high of 21% in late 2024 in the face of soaring inflation.
Although borrowing costs were lowered to 14.25% in June, Russia’s regulator recently warned it may have to keep rates elevated for longer due to a widening budget deficit and growing disruption to the domestic fuel market.
Gref, who warned in June 2025 that high interest rates and an overvalued ruble would stifle investment and GDP growth, said Tuesday that investments in Russia have already fallen by over 14% and could drop another 3% this year.
He said that falling wages and job redundancies were further crises facing the Russian economy.
This isn’t the first time Gref has clashed with Putin, a risky move in a country where many prominent critics of the regime have suffered mysterious accidents in recent years.
Last September, Putin slammed Gref’s claims that Russia’s economy was stagnating, insisting that his government was taking the right steps to combat inflation.
“Some people think that a kind of hypothermia has already set in, but lending has not stopped. Ask Gref, has lending stopped? No. The rate of growth has [only] decreased,” Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, as reported at the time by Novaya Gazeta.
Putin was recently forced to admit that ongoing Ukrainian strikes on his country’s energy infrastructure were damaging Russia’s economy.
“As for strikes against critical infrastructure in general, and energy infrastructure in particular, of course, these attacks on our infrastructure facilities create problems, that’s obvious,” Putin said in an interview with state TV Sunday.
Last Friday, Russian authorities in Crimea, a Ukrainian province illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, declared a state of emergency, halting all fuel sales to civilians in the face of Ukrainian attacks.
With Post wires.
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