# VTB Bank **VTB Bank** (founded 1990 as Vneshtorgbank) is a Russian bank majority-owned by the state and run since 2002 by [[Andrey Kostin]]. In the Trump–Russia story it is the bank [[Felix Sater]] invoked as the financier for [[Trump Tower Moscow]]. ## Ownership and sanctions As of February 2022 the Russian state controlled more than 90% of VTB through the Deposit Insurance Agency, the Finance Ministry and the federal property agency. The U.S. added it to the sectoral sanctions list on July 29, 2014, followed by the EU, U.K. and Canada. VTB sold its U.S. arm, VTB Capital, in 2018. On February 24, 2022 the U.S. and U.K. imposed blocking sanctions, and in March 2022 VTB was cut off from SWIFT. ## Trump Tower Moscow BuzzFeed News reported that in late 2015 an unnamed former GRU officer told Sater financing could come through VTB; VTB said it "never held any negotiations on any matter relating to the construction of the Trump Tower." Bloomberg's reading of the [[Mueller Report]] adds an important qualification: Sater *claimed* to [[Michael Cohen]] that he had VTB access, but in December 2015 he was actually dealing with Genbank, a Crimean lender. The record supports "VTB was named as a prospective financier," not "VTB agreed to finance." ## RWKB angle VTB shows how the promise of state-bank backing functioned as a lure in Trump's Moscow deal-making. ## See Also - [[Andrey Kostin]] - [[Trump Tower Moscow]] - [[Felix Sater]]