By Ben Aris in Berlin Russian banks ended 2023 with a record RUB3.3 trillion ($33.3bn) in profits (adjusted for dividends), up by about half from the 2021 result, the last year of normal operations, according to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). (chart) Thanks to a banking sector clean up that was launched by CBR governor Elvia Nabiullina when she took over in 2013 and is largely finished now, Russia’s banking sector went to the war in robust health and has been able to shrug off the multiple external shocks that the sanctions regime delivered. The collective West was hoping to induce a financ…