"As all of you know, we've sought to generate a financial shock by cutting off Russia's largest banks and its central bank, from doing any business with the US and freezing any of its assets that touch the US financial system or those of our allies. And today, we're dramatically escalating the financial shock by imposing full blocking sanctions on Russia's largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa-Bank," the official said.
"Sberbank is the main artery in the Russian financial system by itself. It holds nearly one third of Russia's total banking sector assets. That's over $500 billion. That's roughly twice the size of the second largest Russian bank, which we previously fully blocked and in total we've now fully blocked more than two thirds of the Russian banking sector," the official added.
Sberbank and Alfa-Bank will continue working normally after US blocking sanctions, Russian banks said.
Sanctions will not affect operations of the bank because the system has already been adapted to earlier restrictions, Sber noted. "The experience, resources and expertise of Sber make it possible for us to work successfully in any conditions," the credit institution noted.
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