Following the negative external market conditions of 2014-17 after the imposition of Western sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis, Russian banks attempted to procure capital on the domestic market via reverse repurchase agreements and operations on the domestic bond market. Simultaneously, some banks considered the possibilities to attract cheap financing from new international capital markets in the Asian region. The study aims to evaluate whether any significant structural changes in the Russian outward banking foreign direct investment emerged in 2014-17 as the result of the pivot to the East proclaimed by the Russian government. Macro- and micro- analysis of the outward banking foreign direct investment showed that only a marginal number of Russian banks, comprising of large state-owned banks, banks closely related to the natural resource-type Russian multinational corporations, and large private banks, have the capacity to expand their operations abroad. While the increasing presence of the natural resource-type Russian multinational corporations in the Asian and African regions is slowly luring Russian banks into these markets, drastic structural changes in the outward banking foreign direct investment are unachievable in the short-term. The geographical distribution of Russian banks remains unchanged with offshore financial centers, Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States being the traditional destinations of Russian outward banking foreign direct investment. Thus, Russia’s East policy ambitions remain rather bounded.