Moreover, foreign clients of several large banks found themselves in a similar situation. In the banking industry itself, they say that the unspoken tightening (read, in fact, restriction) of transfers to individuals in the CIS countries was imposed on banks by the recently appointed director of the department of financial monitoring and currency control of the Central Bank, Bogdan Shabl. The previous head of the department, Ilya Yasinsky, ceased his powers on February 4. Shablya is the creation of Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Olga Polyakova.
The restriction on transfers to CIS countries is associated with the regulator’s attempt to report on stopping the outflow of capital from Russia and show a beautiful picture for the elections. The migrants themselves really bring a lot out; officially, as of 2020, there were more than 11.5 million labor migrants in Russia. 
At the same time, in communications with banks, the Central Bank explains the new tightening of measures regarding transfers by the fight against illegal bookmakers and casinos. In fact, casinos and bookmakers have worked and continue to work. What comes to mind is the analogy of Roskomnadzor’s attempts to block Telegram, which led to blocking of everything including Amazon servers, but not Telegram itself. Casino operators are now finding loopholes and reconfiguring payments faster than the regulator’s restrictive mechanics.
The real victims of the situation are migrants who are trying to transfer home their honestly earned money. And this could still lead to a real problem by the same elections. After all, as practice shows, a spark sometimes breaks out where it is not expected – just as mass protests began in Kazakhstan across the country in January 2022 against the backdrop of rising fuel prices in one of the regions. Now the Central Bank, artificially adjusting financial indicators, unwittingly puts the blame on the AP, creating social tension of a different kind and potential.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
