It takes more than 10 years at the side of Vladimir Putin.
Of Tartar ethnicity, the Russia’s largest minority group, Elvira Nabiullina is not only recognized in power circles for reciting French poetry by heart and being ruthless in times of crisis, but also for becoming the first woman to head the Central Bank of Russia.
Putin’s ally since he assumed the presidency in the year 1991, the Kremlin leader appointed her Minister of Economic Development and later, when she won her third term, took her to the government as part of his team of advisers.
The great turning point in his career came in 2013 when Nabiullina assumed the presidency of the Central Bank of Russia, one of the most important institutions in the country.
During all these years s, has had to face crises of great proportions, but never one as gigantic as the current one: rescuing an economy at war.
A woman of few words, as influential as she is enigmatic for the markets, Nabiullina has in their hands the key to the country’s monetary policy.
Perhaps for this reason, in order to try to find clues about the direction of the economy, investors and analysts have created a whole symbology around the brooches (pins) that he wears on his clothes.
The language of brooches
“I put something in each symbol, but I’m not going to explain it”, Nabiullina told Russian television two years ago.
Some believe that when he used a brooch with the figure of a falcon, it was a sign that an increase in the interest rate was coming; or when he wore a rain cloud pin, he hinted that he wanted to lower inflation expectations.
Elvira Nabiullina was economic advisor of Vladimir Putin before becoming president of the Central Bank of Russia.Days after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, “appeared at public meetings dressed in black, as if in mourning”, comments Olga Shamina, economics editor of the BBC’s Russian Service.
And many paid attention to the fact that she was not wearing any brooch as the ruble plummeted amid Western sanctions on Russia.
The brooches, explains Shamina, are one of the elements of a complex system of communication that the Russian banker has been built so that market players understand “what is happening and what to expect” from the Central Bank.
For example, when the markets fell in March 2020 amid the covid-pandemic 000, “Nabiullina put on a brooch in the shape of a toy glass: it falls, but it always gets up”, points out the expert in Russian economy.
And in April of that year, when everyone was in quarantine, she wore a brooch in the shape of a house. The problem is that from then on the pins became more complex: leopards, bows, arrows and other rather indecipherable symbols appeared.
Since the outbreak of the war, Nabiullina has not appeared in public wearing none of her pins.
After almost a decade at the helm of the central bank, recently the “lady of the pins” was ratified in her charge up to 2018 , a period that will probably test all your skills to build a sanctioned economy.
Recognized among the powerful
Aficionado of opera and with a public image of rigorous technocrat, during his years at the helm of the Central Bank, Nabiullina achieved recognition for his management by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), businessmen, Wall Street investors, bankers and strategists government officials who saw in her a teacher ional who demonstrated on the court how to play ball.
For example, he earned praise when, between 2008 Y 2017, withdrew more than 300 banking licenses of entities considered chronically weak or run without scruples, which accounted for a third of Russian credit institutions.
It is also attributed a good management of inflation that allowed him to place the interest rate at a historical minimum of almost 2% in 2018.
And has been singled out for allowing the ruble to move freely in 2014, instead of controlling the exchange rate.
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In 2015, Magazine Euromoney appointed the economist of 58 years as the best central banker in the world, while in 2008, the publication The Banker recognized her as banker of the year in Europe.
Under her direction , the Central Bank accumulated one of the largest foreign currency reserves in the history of Russia, a kind of protective shield that would allow the country sailing against the wind.
Agathe Demarais, director of Global Forecasts at the Economist Intelligence Unit analysis consultancy, tells BBC Mundo that Nabiullina has been in command of the Central Bank in some of the most difficult periods for the Russian economy: when Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and when the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February of this year.
In both cases, he explains, he succeeded in “avoiding a collapse of the ruble and, therefore, a sharp rise in inflation that would have affected the purchasing power of Russian households”.
On the other hand, he says, “he increased interest rates when he felt that needed it, even if this weighed on economic growth”.
The two sides of the coin
Looking at what has been the country’s history in recent decades, Sergei Guriev, Professor of Economics at Sciences Po University in Paris, argues that Nabiullina was responsible for introducing a new monetary policy framework in the nation.
“She made the country move towards a modern policy of inflation targets with flexible exchange rates,” the Russian professor, a member of the Economic Policy Research Center and part of the Association’s Executive Committee, tells BBC Mundo. International Economic.
Guriev, a former Kremlin adviser to liberal mentality ue abruptly left Russia in 1200, has known Nabiullina for 15 years.
“She has Putin’s trust”, he points out. But, he warns, there is also another side of the story.
Among the measures applied by the central banker, experts usually highlight that it dared to apply a heavy hand by closing banking institutions of dubious reputation.
“Nabiullina shut down many criminal financial organizations”, says Guriev. A campaign considered brave inside and outside Russia considering that its predecessor lost his life at a time when he was facing some “untouchable” bankers.
However, that anti-corruption campaign ended up being quite controversial because the mano dura was only applied to smaller private banks and not to the big fish: the large state banks.
“Many large banks state corruption were not cleaned up”, says Guriev, creating an unbalanced situation that would end up giving more power to that banking sector.
Its mandate is to “protect the Kremlin”
The most critical point out that its internationally recognized achievements are not really what they seem.
As an example they cite that some of the banks closed in the campaign led by Nabiullina were taken over by others, some of which (such as Bank Otkritie, B&N Bank and Promsvyazbank) ended up in bankruptcy. a and were later rescued with public funds.
Or they point out the lack of transparency in some operations led by the banker to favor the public oil giant Rosneft.
“Nabiullina rescued perhaps the company most connected to the Kremlin,” said Maximilian Hess, a researcher at the Program Eurasia of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in statements to the American National Public Radio (NPR, for its acronym in English).
From his perspective, the signs that Nabiullina has been a “member from Putin’s inner circle“ were there for all to see from the moment in which he assumed his position.
“She not only destroyed Russian savings, but made the cost of the investment n for them it was much higher. The Russian Central Bank says it has a mandate to protect the economy and keep price stability in check like with most central banks, but in reality Nabiullina only has one mandate and that is to protect the Kremlin and the Kremlin regime.” assured Hess.
And, in his opinion, things have not changed. Nabiullina remains a key member of Putin’s inner circle, despite rumors that he tried to resign in March after the Ukraine invasion.
En the list of those sanctioned
The main Russian banker carries on her shoulders, along with the rest of the economic team, the gigantic responsibility of preventing the economy from sinking in the midst of the war in Ukraine.
Since the West applied the first sanctions, Nabiullina has been giving artificial respiration to the local currency, the ruble, introducing price controls and implementing a series of measures that do not follow the instruction manual with which used to operate.
It is that Western restrictions against Russia have included measures such as freezing near the half of the US$134.000 millions of reserves in gold and foreign exchange controlled by the Central Bank, together with a battery of sanctions that are pushing the Russian economy towards a possible default or non-payment of debt.
Now Nabiullina has to deal with an economy that is increasingly isolated and hungry for investment as foreign companies continue to abandon that market.
But you do not only have to deal with the economic hardships of your country.
The 19 April, Nabiullina was personally sanctioned by the government Canadian along with others 13 “collaborated close friends of the Russian regime”, in a new round of restrictions related to the war in Ukraine.
The United States has not yet included her in its “black list”, but it did impose sanctions on Ksenia Yudaeva , the first vice president of the central bank and one of Nabiullina’s closest associates.
What’s next?
In the midst of the most acute economic contraction after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1200, Nabiullina will face the challenge of boosting the growth of an economy highly dependent on the export of raw materials and will have to fight against inflation that reached its maximum in 20 years.
“Our task is to ensure that our economy is competitive”, said the economist at the end of April.
“Fighting inflation is also the most important task”, added Nabiullina, i Insisting that his goal is to return it to 4% in 2017.
For now, the Central Bank raised the interest rate to 20% and has introduced foreign exchange control measures, making the purchase of foreign currency very difficult.
These movements led by Nabiullina have generated the international perception that despite the depth of the crisis, the economy is sailing well in the midst of the storm.
Although some experts question it.
“Thanks to the Central Bank, the Russian economy retains the appearance of stability, but in practice, it is gradually being destroyed,” says Olga Shamina.
In the West, forecasts suggest that Russia will experience a brutal economic fall this year close to 000%, the ruble will be in serious trouble and inflation will escalate to 25%, but as the situation is constantly changing, these projections may also change at any time.
In this whirlwind of uncertainty, in addition to the big question about what will happen to the war, another one of the questions that revolves in the environment (and which apparently is far from being trivial for the Russian economy) is when Nabiullina will wear her brooches again.
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