Exclusive: What Brazil wants with a Russian bank under sanctions

Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, came under sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union soon after the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, “Sberbank is uniquely important to the Russian economy, holding about a third of all bank assets in Russia.”

Representatives of Sberbank have recently sought business opportunities in Brazil, which has not joined in the Western-led sanctions against Russia.

The Brazilian Report obtained the records of the meeting of Sberbank representatives with leaders of Brazil’s top public banks. The meeting was held in July in Brasília, during which participants signed a memorandum of understanding. 

A summary of this document was published last Friday — after The Brazilian Report inquired about Brazilian officials on the matter. This summary, however, does not bring the level of detail that the documents we obtained reveal.

The meeting was held at the headquarters of Sudeco, a federal government agency aimed at economic development projects in Brazil’s Center-West region — the country’s soybean belt. Representatives of the two largest federal banks, Caixa and Banco do Brasil, also attended, as well as officials from two state-owned regional banks and two other federal agencies for regional development.

Both Brazil’s left and right have refrained from condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine. Former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro cited Brazilian agribusiness’s dependence on Russian fertilizers for his non-committal position, while incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s position stems from a drive for non-alignment with Western powers, the U.S. in particular.

Congressman Vander Loubet, a member of Lula’s left-wing Workers’ Party, claimed responsibility for the meeting. “Today in Brasília, through our influence, we brought directors of the Russian bank Sberbank to a meeting at...