Elvira Nabiullina: Putin's central bank chief blindsided by Russia's war on Ukraine

Putin’s central bank chief was reportedly blindsided by the launch of the invasion of Ukraine and forced to stay in her job. Managing the crisis looks like a deeply unappealing task, says Jane Lewis.

Elvira Nabiullina
Under her stewardship, the central bank amassed one of the world’s biggest stockpiles of foreign currency and gold.
(Image credit: © Getty)

Elvira Nabiullina, known for her symbolic outfits, fittingly wore “funereal black” as she warned, ashen-faced, a month ago, of the devastating hit to the Russian economy from Western sanctions. The Russian centralbank governor left it open to speculation what she really thought about the war. But now we have a better picture, says Bloomberg.

Reports suggest that Nabiullina sought to resign in the chaotic days after the invasion, “but was told to stay” by Vladimir Putin – reinforcing the narrative that the conflict was orchestrated by a relatively small cadre of Kremlin officials. Despite her reported closeness to the president, Nabiullina was apparently blindsided. She had conscientiously run through “every kind of stress test”, a senior former official told the Financial Times. “But not a war.”

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.