AKSJF - Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman said to offer Ukraine $1B - report

Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman is proposing to put $1B of his personal wealth into a Ukrainian subsidiary of the bank he founded in the hopes that the U.K. would drop sanctions against him, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the issue.

Fridman, who is a controlling shareholder of Russian financial institution Alfa Bank, denied to the WSJ that a quid pro quo offer was made. The British Foreign Office told the newspaper, "The U.K. does not condone any sanctions avoidance."

The U.S. does not have Fridman on its sanctions list, but the European Union and U.K. do. Fridman's business partners Petr Aven and German Khan are also on the EU and U.K. lists. In April, the U.S. sanctioned Alfa Bank , Russia's largest private bank, and publicly traded Sberbank ( OTCPK:SBRCY ) ( OTC:AKSJF ) to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Roman Shpek, Alfa Bank's supervisory board chairman, told the WSJ the proposed $1B transfer would be used to finance projects in Ukraine related to infrastructure, healthcare, and food and energy security. "The bank would like, as one of the biggest private banks in Ukraine, systemic banks, to be an active player in recovering the Ukrainian economy after the war," he said. He also denied that the offer was meant to avoid or lift sanctions.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Sberbank ( OTC:AKSJF ) has started to lend in Chinese yuan .

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