Oleg Y. Tinkov was worth more than $9 billion in November, renowned as one of Russia’s few self-made business tycoons after building his fortune outside the energy and minerals industries that were the playgrounds of Russian kleptocracy.
Then, last month, Mr. Tinkov, the founder of one of Russia’s biggest banks, criticized the war in Ukraine in a post on Instagram. The next day, he said, President Vladimir V. Putin’s administration contacted his executives and threatened to nationalize his bank if it did not cut ties with him. Last week, he sold his 35 percent stake to a Russian mining billionaire in what he describes as a “desperate sale, a fire sale” that was forced on him by the Kremlin.
“I couldn’t discuss the price,” Mr. Tinkov said. “It was like a hostage — you take what you are offered. I couldn’t negotiate.”
Mr. Tinkov, 54, spoke to The New York Times by phone on Sunday, from a location he would not disclose, in his first interview since Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine. He said he had hired bodyguards after friends with contacts in the Russian security services told him he should fear for his life, and quipped that while he had survived leukemia, perhaps “the Kremlin will kill me.”
It was a swift and jarring turn of fortune for a longtime billionaire who for years had avoided running afoul of Mr. Putin while portraying himself as independent of the Kremlin. His downfall underscores the consequences facing those in the Russian elite who dare to cross their president, and helps explain why there has been little but silence from business leaders who, according to Mr. Tinkov, are worried about the impact of the war on their lifestyles and their wallets.
Indeed, Mr. Tinkov claimed that many of his acquaintances in the business and government elite told him privately that they agreed with him, “but they are all afraid.”
In the interview, Mr. Tinkov spoke out more forcefully against the war than has any other major Russian business leader.
“I’ve realized that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Mr. Tinkov said, predicting that Mr. Putin would stay in power a long time. “I believed that the Putin regime was bad. But of course, I had no idea that it would take on such catastrophic scale.”
(…)
Mr. Tinkov is concerned that a foundation he started that is dedicated to improving blood cancer treatment in Russia could also become a casualty of his financial trouble.
He denied that he was speaking out in the hopes of getting the U.K. sanctions against him lifted, though he said he hoped the British government would eventually “correct this mistake.”
He said that his illness — he is now suffering from graft-versus-host disease, a stem-cell transplant complication, he said — might have made him more courageous about speaking out than other Russian business leaders and senior officials. Members of the elite, he claimed, are “in shock” about the war and have called him in great numbers to offer support.
“They understand that they are tied to the West, that they are part of the global market, and so on,” Mr. Tinkov said. “They’re fast, fast being turned into Iran. But they don’t like it. They want their kids to spend their summer holidays in Sardinia.”
Mr. Tinkov said that no one from the Kremlin had ever contacted him directly, but that in addition to the pressure on his company, he heard from friends with security service contacts that he could be in physical danger.
“They told me: ‘The decision regarding you has been made,’” he said. “Whether that means that on top of everything they’re going to kill me, I don’t know. I don’t rule it out.”
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Oleg Y. Tinkov was worth more than $9 billion in November, renowned as one of Russia’s few self-made business tycoons after building his fortune outside the energy and minerals industries that were the playgrounds of Russian kleptocracy.
Then, last month, Mr. Tinkov, the founder of one of Russia’s biggest banks, criticized the war in Ukraine in a post on Instagram. The next day, he said, President Vladimir V. Putin’s administration contacted his executives and threatened to nationalize his bank if it did not cut ties with him. Last week, he sold his 35 percent stake to a Russian mining billionaire in what he describes as a “desperate sale, a fire sale” that was forced on him by the Kremlin.
“I couldn’t discuss the price,” Mr. Tinkov said. “It was like a hostage — you take what you are offered. I couldn’t negotiate.”
Mr. Tinkov, 54, spoke to The New York Times by phone on Sunday, from a location he would not disclose, in his first interview since Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine. He said he had hired bodyguards after friends with contacts in the Russian security services told him he should fear for his life, and quipped that while he had survived leukemia, perhaps “the Kremlin will kill me.”
It was a swift and jarring turn of fortune for a longtime billionaire who for years had avoided running afoul of Mr. Putin while portraying himself as independent of the Kremlin. His downfall underscores the consequences facing those in the Russian elite who dare to cross their president, and helps explain why there has been little but silence from business leaders who, according to Mr. Tinkov, are worried about the impact of the war on their lifestyles and their wallets.
Indeed, Mr. Tinkov claimed that many of his acquaintances in the business and government elite told him privately that they agreed with him, “but they are all afraid.”
In the interview, Mr. Tinkov spoke out more forcefully against the war than has any other major Russian business leader.
“I’ve realized that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Mr. Tinkov said, predicting that Mr. Putin would stay in power a long time. “I believed that the Putin regime was bad. But of course, I had no idea that it would take on such catastrophic scale.”
(…)
Mr. Tinkov is concerned that a foundation he started that is dedicated to improving blood cancer treatment in Russia could also become a casualty of his financial trouble.
He denied that he was speaking out in the hopes of getting the U.K. sanctions against him lifted, though he said he hoped the British government would eventually “correct this mistake.”
He said that his illness — he is now suffering from graft-versus-host disease, a stem-cell transplant complication, he said — might have made him more courageous about speaking out than other Russian business leaders and senior officials. Members of the elite, he claimed, are “in shock” about the war and have called him in great numbers to offer support.
“They understand that they are tied to the West, that they are part of the global market, and so on,” Mr. Tinkov said. “They’re fast, fast being turned into Iran. But they don’t like it. They want their kids to spend their summer holidays in Sardinia.”
Mr. Tinkov said that no one from the Kremlin had ever contacted him directly, but that in addition to the pressure on his company, he heard from friends with security service contacts that he could be in physical danger.
“They told me: ‘The decision regarding you has been made,’” he said. “Whether that means that on top of everything they’re going to kill me, I don’t know. I don’t rule it out.”
Yeah, Russia is a mafia gang.