据报道，一名俄罗斯银行家试图争论称，普京总统并没有巨额秘密财产，因为他“非常专注于他的工作”。
俄罗斯国有银行外贸银行(VTB)的首席行政官安德烈·科斯京(Andrey Kostin)在莫斯科接受美国全国广播公司财经频道(CNBC)的采访时，对《巴拿马文件》中泄露的有关普京的20亿美元的蛛丝马迹表示怀疑。
科斯京还说：“我不相信普京先生有20亿美元，因为即使他想要那么多钱，我都不知道他怎么花得掉。” 科斯京的采访片段被公布在CNBC的网站上。科斯京说，他不认为“赚取私人财富”是普京生活的重点，他还补充说，从来没有人看到过这位俄罗斯总统拥有这么多财富的证据。
以资产来计算，外贸银行是俄罗斯第二大银行，仅次于国营的联邦储蓄银行(Sberbank)。俄罗斯政府在外贸银行持有60.9%股权，但科斯京对政府干预银行运作的说法予以否认。
国际调查记者联盟(ICIJ)四月报道称，由普京好友进行的某些可疑付款有可能是作为换取俄罗斯政府援助或合同的回报。该组织称：“这些秘密文件显示，这些钱有很多源自于塞浦路斯的一家银行，而当时这家银行的大部分为俄罗斯国家控制的外贸银行所持有。”
这些文件还显示了10多年间数十起涉及与普京相关的人或公司的交易，包括普京的老朋友，大提琴演奏家谢尔盖·罗尔杜金(Sergei Roldugin)以及普京发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫(Dmitry Peskov)的妻子。普京承认和罗尔杜金之间有交易往来，但是说没有从事违法活动的证据。普京自2000年以来一直把持着克里姆林宫的权力。罗尔杜金对有人提出他充当了普京金钱和财产的保管人或流通管道的说法不予理会。
A Russian banker has reportedly tried to argue that President Vladimir Putin does not have vast secret wealth because he is "very much dedicated to his job."
During an interview in Moscow with CNBC television, part of the U.S. NBC network, Russian banker Andrey Kostin cast doubt on a $2 billion money trail leading to Putin, as revealed in financial documents known as the Panama Papers.
Kostin, the chief executive of Russia's state-owned VTB bank, said, "I don't believe that Mr. Putin has $2 billion, because even if he wanted to have, I don't know how he is going to spend them,” Kostin said in a portion of the interview published online. The banker said he does not think that “earning private wealth" is one of Putin's personal priorities, and that no one has ever seen evidence of such wealth possessed by the Russian president.
By assets, VTB Bank is Russia's second-biggest, after Sberbank, which also is state-owned. The government has a 60.9 percent stake in VTB, but Kostin denied the Kremlin has influenced his bank's operations.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported in April that suspicious payments made by “Putin's cronies may have, in some cases, been intended as payoffs, possibly in exchange for Russian government aid or contracts.” The secret documents suggested that much of the money originally came from a bank in Cyprus, the ICIJ said, “that, at the time, was majority owned by the Russian state-controlled VTB Bank.”
The documents also showed dozens of transactions, over more than a decade, involving people or companies linked to Putin, who has been in power at the Kremlin since 2000. Among those identified in the document were Putin's long-time friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, and the wife of Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Putin has admitted there were transactions between him and Roldugin, but said there was no evidence of illegal activity. Roldugin has dismissed any suggestion that he was either a custodian or a conduit for Putin's money or assets.
