It is almost a year since the forced nationalization of Ukraine’s biggest bank, whose collapse could have wreaked havoc with the country’s economy. It has cost the country $6 billion and sparked a wave of recriminations and lawsuits. As policymakers try to turn PrivatBank into a viable lender, here’s the inside story of a high-stakes national psychodrama.

Back in June, holders of Eurobonds bailed in during the state takeover of Ukraine’s PrivatBank last year hired a clutch of upmarket American PRs to make the case to western journalists that the nationalization was illegitimate.

Sanctions and regulatory scrutiny stymie sales; western subsidiaries surge back to profit.

Fallout from the Ukraine crisis has not yet hurt the country’s planned infrastructure development programme. But sanctions or not, Russia will be hard pushed to meet its long-term target in the domestic finance market alone.

Banks and their corporate clients are scrabbling to get up to speed and comply with a growing slate of US and European sanctions against Russia – or face unlimited fines and imprisonment.

The battle between the west and Russia over Ukraine is intensifying amid a full-on financial war. Euromoney investigates the foreign-currency credit crunch for Russian borrowers.

Russia’s adventures in Ukraine are adversely affecting its international issuance. And at home they will stifle ambitions to develop an international financial centre.

The crisis in Crimea should give the west pause for thought in its relations with eastern European states and with Russia.

Russia-US tensions over Ukraine could be the 'first major political conflict that is played out in international financial markets', according to Citi, as sanctions take their bite.

Five CIOs discuss asset allocation changes in light of the tension in the border countries.

While OTP and Raiffeisen are vulnerable to FX losses and a slowdown in Russia and Ukraine, the impact should be manageable, though there are some exceptions.

Russia’s muscular posture on the Crimean region of Ukraine, re-awakening Cold War tensions, threatens to tip the economy into a mild recession and has put a spotlight on the country’s structural weaknesses amid political risk, say analysts.

Although current account deterioration, persistent capital outflows and the Ukraine crisis would seem to weaken rouble, the central bank’s flexible FX regime should keep the currency out of turmoil, say analysts.

The scale of Ukraine’s challenge to correct economic balances is staggering, even if a political consensus is reached that would see an IMF support package. What’s more, markets might be understating sovereign default risk given strict debt covenants in the 2015 Russian-backed dollar bond that is sure to be used in a regional chess game, say analysts.