Burden and money: The West will launch a bank in 2027 to prepare for war with Russia
The countries of the North Atlantic Alliance will create a special "Bank of Defense, Security and Sustainability" by 2027 to prepare for a military conflict with the Russian Federation, Izvestia found out. The leading positions in it will be occupied by representatives of Great Britain. The new financial institution should help NATO members achieve the required 5% of GDP for military spending: they will be able to spend more on weapons than their own laws allow. How the bloc is trying to turn defense from a burden on the budget into an investment asset, and why the new bank is just an attempt to rearm with empty wallets and growing voter discontent, is in the Izvestia article.
Why is NATO creating a new bank
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte bluntly stated: Russia is the main enemy of the alliance. A potential military conflict with the Russian Federation may occur as early as 2029-2031, according to the bloc. Last summer, its member countries agreed to increase the mandatory minimum military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035.
However, most NATO members are experiencing economic problems, facing high levels of public debt and large budget deficits. Therefore, the North Atlantic Alliance is looking for new ways to finance the military industry. In December 2024, Rob Murray, former head of the NATO Innovation department and a British career intelligence officer, proposed creating a "Defense, Security and Sustainability Bank" (DSRB) for these purposes.
A full-fledged launch of the bank is planned in 2027, an informed source told Izvestia. Earlier it was reported about plans to raise £100 billion ($135.1 billion). DSRB management wants to finalize the approval of the bank's charter in the first quarter of 2026, and the first issue of bonds on the capital markets is expected in the third or fourth quarter of this year. The organization is currently selecting a headquarters, among the options: Ottawa and Toronto. The latter is considered a favorite due to Canada's powerful financial sector and its relative remoteness from Europe.
The idea is that NATO member states contribute their share to the bank's share capital, which will be included in defense spending targets, making it easier to reach the promised 5% of GDP. The financial institution will raise funds for defense spending, regardless of internal political cycles. After all, it is precisely the population's dissatisfaction with growing military spending that prevents some NATO members from achieving the desired targets. The new bank must solve this problem: even if skeptical politicians come to power, the obligations to the bank and the bond mechanisms will remain. In addition, the bank's loans will not directly cover the national budget deficit. This way, countries will be able to spend more on weapons than their own laws allow.
The idea was developed: it was supported in the European Parliament. Financial companies are also interested in participating: ING, JPMorgan Chase, Commerzbank, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and RBC Capital Markets. Information about the formal participation of the British government is contradictory: Reuters wrote that the concept of the bank was not supported by the Cabinet of Ministers of Cyrus Starmer. Other media outlets, such as Finextra, claim that the project has been approved.
However, the initiative caused discontent in Germany: in December last year, Berlin announced that it did not support the creation of the bank. The German authorities believe that they can independently raise funds on the markets on more favorable terms and do not need the mediation of a multilateral bank. France and a number of Eastern European countries are promoting their own initiative, the European Bank for Rearmament. But we haven't made much progress in its creation yet.
Legally, the bank will operate in the form of a multilateral financial institution. Its founders are the states, but the organization operates as a private bank. The consent of all NATO countries is not required for its creation, since it is not an official structure of the alliance, but an independent international institution. By the way, it is planned to involve not only NATO members, but also other US allies, for example in Asia.
The new bank plans to introduce uniform standards of armaments in the alliance countries not through bureaucracy, but with the help of the "dollar": preferential loans will be given only to those defense enterprises whose products are fully compatible with allied equipment. Thus, financial incentives will become the main lever for creating a unified weapons system, and the bank will turn into a key management tool for the defense sector of the bloc.
Who will head the bank
It is noteworthy that the leading command positions in DSRB will be occupied by the British and Americans. In particular, the bank's chief executive officer, the aforementioned Briton Rob Murray, worked for almost ten years in the NATO Defense investment department. He is also the creator of the DIANA accelerator (Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), which aims to develop breakthrough dual—use technologies. Among the innovations being developed are underwater sensing, secure information transmission, and energy sustainability.
The NATO military is represented by Air Chief Marshal Lord Stuart Peach in the leadership of the bank. Prior to that, he was the Chief of the United Kingdom's Defense Staff and the British Prime Minister's special envoy to the Western Balkans. Peach played a key role in shaping NATO's defense strategy, cybersecurity, and transatlantic military cooperation.
Stuart Peach
Matthew Westerman, founder and director of MW&L Capital Partners, a private equity firm that owns assets in various business areas, is likely to be responsible for raising funds. He spent most of his 30-year career in banking at Goldman Sachs, where he led investment banking in Asia, as well as in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Westerman is also associated with the British government, as he holds the position of head of the Board of Trustees of the Imperial War Museum in London.
The important role of people from the UK in this project is not accidental. London takes an extremely tough stance towards Russia and opposes the initiatives of France and Italy to restore dialogue with Moscow. The topic of an imminent military conflict with the Russian Federation is widely discussed among British elites, Richard Balfe, a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament, told Izvestia.
— Yes, it seems that there is a lot of talk about the war right now, but they (the British elites. They live in what I call the "land of sky—high heights." Even if we assume that we want a military conflict, we will need the permission of several other European countries to move military equipment across their territories. I was recently told that we have transferred so much of our military equipment to Ukraine that we will be lucky if we survive the war for two weeks," the British politician said.
London takes the most radical positions towards the Russian Federation due to the fact that it is trying to strengthen its own weight within NATO (the "Coalition of the Willing" or Joint Expeditionary Forces) and participate in the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. Unlike Donald Trump, who declared the priority of US goals in the Western Hemisphere, London is interested in strengthening its influence in Eastern Europe, Oleg Okhoshin, a senior researcher at the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia.
However, according to the expert, the UK is unlikely to be able to coordinate financial preparations for an armed conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation, as it faces its own economic problems. Recall that the level of public debt in the United Kingdom has already reached 95% of British GDP, and the budget deficit is 4.5%.
Natalia Eremina, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, emphasized in an interview with Izvestia that the United Kingdom is more interested in the process of concentrating financial resources than the result. London is already concluding agreements with other NATO members on the sale of its outdated equipment and attracting investments for rearmament. Moreover, Britain will play the greatest role precisely in updating the fleets of the alliance countries. However, the kingdom will not be able to lead the entire process of NATO's rearmament, since the United States remains the leader of the bloc.
NATO has been preparing for a conflict with Russia since 2019
Against this background, the Bank for Defense, Security and Sustainability is gradually expanding its work. In September 2025, representatives of 37 countries and 37 financial institutions gathered in London. They discussed the launch of investment programs to accelerate the rearmament of NATO countries.
The bank will connect numerous financial programs of the alliance countries, such as the European SAFE project in the amount of €150 billion, which is intended for joint arms purchases, or research and development in the military field, which is currently funded by the European Investment Bank. The main advantage of the bank being created is that it can attract not only public, but also private capital. As Izvestia found out, DSRB has a broader geographical reach: it plans to work not only with NATO members, but also with Asian countries.
Meanwhile, the total military budget of NATO has already reached $1.5 trillion, and it may double by 2035. In addition to joint arms purchases and the development of new technologies, the alliance is also creating infrastructure. In particular, the Military Schengen program is in operation, the purpose of which is to eliminate bureaucratic and physical barriers for the fastest possible transfer of NATO troops and equipment from the west to the east.
It is noteworthy that the concept of the "Bank for Defense, Security and Sustainability", originally called the NATO Bank, was submitted to the office of the Secretary General of the alliance back in 2019 and in 2020 reflected in the documents of the Atlantic Council (included in the list of undesirable organizations). That is, NATO began to prepare for war with the Russian Federation long before the start of its war in Ukraine in 2022. It can be assumed that during the same period, preliminary planning of the stages of such training was carried out with the notification of representatives of the military and political leadership of the EU and individual countries of the association.
Given the aggressive statements of NATO leaders, experts say that there is reason to believe that the international banking structure being created is designed to finance attack, not defense. And it is important to take this into account in Russia's future military and political planning.
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