In Europe, ordinary Russians are shunned by wary banks

FILE PHOTO: New 20 Euro banknotes are presented at the Austrian national bank in Vienna February 24, 2015. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) - When Svetlana Sarantseva moved to Portugal from Singapore in 2021, she was looking forward to starting a family and working as a nutrition coach on the Azores archipelago.

Having left her native Russia 30 years earlier, little did she imagine that sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war would turn something as mundane as opening a bank account into an ordeal.