Aid to refugees lingered on the bills

Petersburg public figures, who had previously complained about the blocking of accounts by Sberbank involved in collecting donations for refugees from the NVO zone and from the Ukrainian regions, began to report the lifting of restrictions. Restrictions have so far been removed from the accounts of some individuals, while the accounts of organizations providing assistance to refugees remain blocked. Reports about the blocking of Sberbank accounts due to transfers “for dubious purposes” began to come from different regions in the first half of July. The aid organizers themselves fear that the blocking situation may affect the number of donations.

Volunteers who are helping Ukrainian refugees in St. Petersburg began to report that Sberbank had unfrozen the accounts of their donors. This information was confirmed to Kommersant by human rights activist Yegor Zakharov, the organizer of fundraising to help victims of the flood in the Kherson region after the destruction of the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station in June 2023. According to Kommersant, not all accounts are available yet – we are talking only about a part of individuals who transferred insignificant amounts.

Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, who was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church before his critical remarks about the outbreak of hostilities in the Donbass in 2014 and now heads the “Orthodox community of the apostolic tradition in the name of the Holy Trinity,” was one of the first to report the blocking of the accounts of the community engaged in that including fundraising for refugees. According to him, Sberbank has restricted access to the organization’s accounts and has not yet restored it. “We have serious turnovers, we are accountable for everything,” Mr. Mikhnov-Vaitenko said. “We are a religious organization, we report to the Ministry of Justice. If questions arise, they ask them, we identify the instructions of Rosmonitoring.” Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko has been coordinating the organization of medical and legal assistance for refugees from Ukraine arriving in St. Petersburg since 2022. The humanitarian work of the community, according to him, continues: “We have a contract for medical services, and the payment is made not for each procedure, but once a month. Fortunately, the previous month was closed for us, and I hope that when it will be necessary to pay for July, the situation will be resolved. While we continue to provide services on parole. The social activist has not yet been able to get an explanation of the situation from Sberbank. He fears that without any detailed explanation from the bank, citizens will stop donating their funds, fearing a repeat of the blockages. Two-thirds of donations, he said, come from individuals.

Earlier, Boris Vishnevsky, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg from Yabloko, said that he had turned to German Gref with a request to clarify the situation with the blocking. He, according to him, has not yet received an official response, but confirmed to Kommersant that he is aware of the unblocking of the accounts of dozens of citizens: “I think the publicity and requests have worked, but so far only donors have been unblocked, while the organizers of the collection are still blocked “.

For those whose accounts were frozen, the bank, according to them, sent standard notifications that they were suspected of violating the legislation on combating the financing of terrorism and laundering of criminal proceeds.

In particular, the artist Marina Daikovskaya received such a letter: the account blocking, according to her, forced her to arrange a sale of her works and collect funds for friends’ cards. St. Petersburg journalist Galina Artemenko faced a similar situation. According to her, Sberbank refused to enter into a dialogue with her, and the reason for the blocking was not explained even after a written request. At the same time, she managed to withdraw funds from the account: “The next day after the lockdown, I had to meet my family from the flooded territories – I needed money, a bank employee went to meet me and gave me part of the funds – 90 thousand rubles.” Ms. Artemenko was promised to receive a pension once a month at the department upon presentation of her passport.

Mr. Vishnevsky told Kommersant that he was going to apply to the prosecutor’s office to check the legality of the bank’s actions. “References to FZ-115 are absolutely unacceptable, this law does not give the bank such powers,” the politician believes.

Sberbank refused to explain the blocking to a Kommersant correspondent. “Sorry, but we will not comment on this,” said Polina Trizonova, head of the Sberbank press service. The request sent to the bank by Kommersant remains unanswered.

The press service of the financial ombudsman said that at the moment there have been no requests from citizens to block accounts.

Andrey Kucherov, St. Petersburg