A billionaire in Moscow on condition of anonymity said that the war is already 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.

Oleg Deripaska has 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.

TRAGEDY FOR PEOPLE OF RUSSIA, UKRAINE

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

.
“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.”

PEACE IS IMPORTANT

The Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, used a post on Telegram to call for peace talks to begin “as fast as possible”.

“Peace is very important,” said Deripaska, who is the founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal, in which he still owns a stake via his shares in its parent company En+ Group.
On February 21, Deripaska said there would not be a war.

CRISIS TO DAMAGE TWO NATIONS

“This crisis will cost lives and damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years,” Fridman said. “While a solution seems frighteningly far off, I can only join those whose fervent desire is for the bloodshed to end. I’m sure my partners share my view,” he said.

One of Fridman’s long-term partners, Pyotr Aven, attended a meeting at the Kremlin with Putin and 36 other major Russian businessmen last week, the Kremlin said.

The billionaires who gathered for a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday were silent, he said.
“Businessmen understand very well the consequences. But who is asking the opinion of business about this?”

US SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN BUSINESSMEN

Washington imposed sanctions on Deripaska and other influential Russians because of their ties to Putin after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which Moscow denies.
Russia’s so-called oligarchs, who once exercised significant influence over President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, are facing economic chaos after the West imposed severe sanctions on Russia over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin, after consulting his security council of senior officials, said he ordered the special military operation to protect people, including Russian citizens, from “genocide” – an accusation the West calls baseless propaganda.

XXXXXXXXXX

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s alleged money laundering and mafia links didn’t get him sanctioned — but the war in Ukraine has

Oleg Deripaska, the prominent billionaire Russian oligarch newly sanctioned by Australia over his ties to Vladimir Putin and his regime amid the war in Ukraine, has enjoyed a relatively untroubled time as an investor here until now, despite serious accusations against him.

Key points:

• A company Mr Deripaska founded owns 20 per cent of Australian miner QAL
• The US Treasury hit Mr Deripaska with sanctions in 2018
• The federal government has rejected allegations it has been too slow with its sanctions

The US Senate intelligence committee has said that Mr Deripaska’s companies “are proxies for the Kremlin, including for Russian government influence efforts, economic measures and diplomatic relations”.

Mr Deripaska has also been accused by the US Treasury of laundering money for Mr Putin and holding his assets. He has strongly denied this.

Amid a bitter court case with a rival businessman in 2012, allegations were aired that Mr Deripaska had threatened the lives of business rivals, bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman and had mafia links. The allegations, also strongly denied, have never been proven.

A UK-listed company founded by Mr Deripaska, called EN+, owns 20 per cent of Australian miner Queensland Alumina Ltd (QAL) through the global aluminium firm, Rusal. Rio Tinto owns the other 80 per cent of QAL.

QAL has been important to Rusal as it supplies alumina to feed its aluminium smelters in Siberia.

The shareholding first came into sharp diplomatic focus in 2018 after the US Treasury hit Mr Deripaska and Rusal with sanctions to punish Mr Putin and his supporters for Russian interference in the US election and other “malign activities” including the 2014 occupation of Crimea.

THE WEST IS BEARING DOWN VERY HARD UPON RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS BY WAY OF SANCTIONS.

HENCE, IF THEY HAVE TO SURVIVE THEY MUST APPLY PRESSURE UPON PUTIN TO STOP RUSSIAN HEDGEMONISM OR AGGRESSION. THAT’S THE ONLY WAY OUT FOR THE OLIGARCHS WHO HAVE ENJOYED THEIR SHARE OF DEMOCRACY AFTER MIKHAIL’S PERESTROKIA. IT NOW SEEMS THAT THE MAJORITY OF THOSE OLIGARCHS DO NOT PREFER A RETURN TO THE COMMUNIST WAY OF LIFE.