The fact of the matter is that despite Putin's insistence, the central bank maintains the highest interest rate in the World, forcing all Russian corporations to register abroad and borrow abroad for the benefit of the Western banks. The deliberate destruction of healthy banks was to assure this policy. Under Russian constitution, the Bank of Russia (central bank) is under IMF control. All assets deposited by the state are property of the central bank (one of the reasons Putin is moving money out of it). If you follow Russian internal affairs you would know that the CEO of the Sberbank (major government owned bank) Herman Gref is an oligarch, appointed by Yeltsin, is considered the enemy of the state, yet Putin is powerless to remove him. They constantly push for devastating changes and currency devaluations. This is a very long subject... Everything in that Bloomberg article is blatant disinformation.