Russia-Ukraine war: Russian billionaires send stern message to Vladimir Putin
India Today
A billionaire in Moscow told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the war was going to be a catastrophe. "It is going to be catastrophic in all senses: for the economy, for relations with the rest of the world, for the political situation," the billionaire said.
Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have called for an end to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war triggered by President Vladimir Putin's assault on the neighbouring country. Another billionaire in Moscow said that the war was going to be a catastrophe, according to a Reuters report.
The Russian currency plunged about 30 per cent against the US dollar after Western nations announced moves to block some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system and to restrict Moscow's use of its massive foreign currency reserves.
The economic squeeze got tighter when the US announced more sanctions to immobilise any assets of the Russian central bank in the United States or held by Americans. The Biden administration estimated that the move could impact “hundreds of billions of dollars” of Russian funding. Biden administration officials said Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Japan, the European Union and others will join the US in targeting the Russian central bank, according to a report in the Associated Press.
Billionaire Fridman, who was born in western Ukraine, said that the conflict was driving a wedge between the two eastern Slav peoples of Russia and Ukraine who have been brothers for centuries, according to the Reuters report.
"I was born in Western Ukraine and lived there until I was 17. My parents are Ukrainian citizens and live in Lviv, my favourite city," Fridman wrote in the letter, Reuters reported.
"But I have also spent much of my life as a citizen of Russia, building and growing businesses. I am deeply attached to the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and see the current conflict as a tragedy for them both."
The Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, used a post on Telegram to call for peace talks to begin "as fast as possible".
