In Russia, communists have proposed confiscating funds from bank deposits to support the economy
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, made a statement during the party’s pre-election convention regarding the possibility of confiscating funds held by citizens and businesses in banks to address economic problems and replenish the budget.
According to him, significant funds are concentrated in the Russian banking system.
“Today, 67 trillion of your money is sitting in banks. 67 trillion and 63 trillion from businesses. That’s a total of 130 trillion. That’s three state budgets. It’s just sitting there, making the bankers richer,” Russian media quoted Zyuganov as saying.
The politician stated that “about 30 trillion rubles can be found quickly” and proposed using them for state needs.
“It’s not being invested in production, nowhere—not even in the war effort. This problem can easily be solved quickly. And if I were the president, I would resolve it with a single decree; under wartime conditions, he has the right to do so—he is the supreme commander-in-chief,” he added.
The statement sparked a sharp reaction in the Russian parliament. Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma’s Financial Markets Committee, called Zyuganov’s remarks a “provocation” and “irresponsible,” stating that seizing deposits makes no economic sense.
“Money held in deposits is a resource for lending to the economy… If it is frozen or seized, it means depriving the economy of money,” he emphasized.
At the same time, he added that such statements may be “artificially instigated.”
Similar discussions about possible interference with bank savings have arisen in Russia before. Some experts suggested that inflationary pressures could lead to the freezing of deposits, but Elvira Nabiullina, Chair of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, called such claims “nonsense,” emphasizing the stability of the banking system.
Earlier, the aggressor country’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and senior officials of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation addressed Putin with serious warnings regarding critical pressure on the state budget. Economic officials stress that the current levels of funding for the war against Ukraine pose real risks of an uncontrolled rise in the deficit and the overall collapse of the country’s financial system.
