Ukraine Crisis – Russian President Vladimir Putin (PG)▶ Click here for a larger view
Criticism of the war is emerging among some oligarchs (emerging wealthy) as the blow from sanctions increases and a feeling of powerlessness that they have no influence over President Vladimir Putin, who is surrounded by hardliners, is spreading.
“They destroyed in one day what they had built up over the years,” said an entrepreneur, attending a meeting of business leaders and President Putin at the Kremlin on February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Several Russian billionaires, former and current senior officials, and bankers said in an anonymous interview that they felt helpless that they were being attacked by a narrow-minded Putin, but that a handful of hard-line security officials around him didn’t make sense to him. He said he felt
Most of the business people who criticize war or government policies or who leave Russia are billionaires who made their money during or before former President Boris Yeltsin.
At least four of the oligarchy who built up great fortunes during the Yeltsin era so far have left Russia, and four high-ranking government officials, including Anatoly Chuweis, special representative for international organization relations, who led the privatization of the Yeltsin era, also left Russia after resigning.
Most of the public complaints so far have focused on the government’s response to Western economic sanctions. There have been no criticisms directed at President Putin yet.
Vladimir Risin, who built his wealth as a steel company in the Yeltsin era, criticized the idea of requiring that goods other than gas be paid in rubles, warning that Russian companies would be expelled from the international market.
Vladimir Potanin, one of the architects of the privatization of Russia’s economy in the 1990s and the owner of Norilsk Nickel, responded to the proposal to confiscate the assets of foreign companies that left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, saying, “It undermines investor confidence and regresses Russia to the era of the 1917 Revolution. will do it,” he criticized.
Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum billionaire who started his business during the Yeltsin era, went a step further and said the impact of the economic crisis caused by sanctions would be three times worse than the 1998 financial crisis, saying the war in Ukraine was “crazy.”
“For the past 14 years, the Putin regime’s national capitalist policies have failed to achieve neither economic growth nor national income growth,” he said.
However, high-ranking government officials in important positions that move Russia hold most positions voluntarily and autonomously. Russia’s central bank governor Elvira Nabi Ulina announced her resignation after the start of Western sanctions, but Putin refused, said people familiar with the situation.
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Those who became billionaires after Putin took office are largely silent, and public opinion does not seem to be shaken by the powerful propaganda activities of the press and policies that suppress freedom of expression.
“We do not support war, but we have to remain silent,” said a person close to a billionaire who attended the Kremlin meeting on February 24, saying that the billionaires in Moscow are only hoping not to be harmed by the current situation.
“I don’t know if anyone has the guts to fight it,” said a Moscow businessman.
He added, however, that “the longer the war and the greater the loss, the greater the likelihood of a revolt.” .
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