Russians Withdrew a Year’s Worth of Cash in a Month Over Coronavirus Fears

One trillion rubles ($13.6 billion) were issued from ATMs and banks through March – more than for all of 2019, according to a report by BNN Bloomberg. The large uptick in daily withdrawals closely matched the timing of President Vladimir Putin's regular televised briefings that detailed the measures being taken to tackle the global pandemic from within the country.

“People were afraid that banks will be unavailable during the quarantine,” Denis Poryvay, an analyst at Raiffeisenbank in Moscow, told the news source. “They withdrew money for the same reason as people hoarded food.”