A “wartime guide to Russian oligarchs” is published by the Russian independent media “Proekt”. Based on Forbes magazine’s 2021 census of Russia’s 200 billionaires, Proekt estimates that 81 of them directly supply Russia’s military-industrial complex, as well as the military or National Guard. While all are subject to Western sanctions, only 14 of them are targeted by all of Ukraine’s allies.
Among these great fortunes are, among others, Gennadi Timtchenko of the gas company Novatek, Igor Rotenberg, heir to billionaire Arkadi Rotenberg and shareholder of Gazprom, or Yuri Kovaltchouk of the Rossia bank. According to Proekt’s investigation, Viktor Vekselberg, co-owner of Rusal with Oleg Deripaska, supplies aluminum powder to missile manufacturer Arkan, while the Evraz mining group of Roman Abramovich, the former owner of the football club of Chelsea, supplies raw materials to tank factories and chemicals for making explosives and producing missiles. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion, the oligarch had nevertheless volunteered to lead peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
If these companies bail out the army, some of them also recruit future soldiers and mercenaries who will go to fight in Ukraine. This was discovered by the Russian investigative media “Important stories”, which spoke with a mercenary from the “Sokol” battalion, integrated into the Russian army. This mercenary explains that he is paid by the Russian Ministry of Defense and a “sponsor company”, identified as Rusal, according to this investigation. The Moscow authorities then force the companies to seek out soldiers of fortune, to employ them fictitiously, to finally send them to the front.
Novatek, the second largest natural gas producer in Russia after Gazprom, also supplies the Ukrainian front with “volunteers”. Several large Russian groups act in this way. “There are many new oligarchs among these companies who take advantage of the war to obtain state contracts by supplying military and other equipment,” says Vladislav Inozemstev, an independent Russian economist. “It’s a new trend that has developed since the beginning of the war.”
Far from adopting an openly “warmonger” attitude, these billionaires are on the contrary very discreet about their support for the “military special operation”. They even go so far as to deny their involvement in the conflict, like Mikhail Fridman, head of the Alfa bank, which nevertheless continues to finance, even today, a Russian arms factory.
“They seek to preserve their neutrality,” says Daniel Treisman, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and an expert on Russia. While the richest Russians have had to give up part of their assets because of the sanctions (their fortunes have shrunk by almost 100 billion dollars between 2021 and 2023, writes the independent Russian newspaper Meduza) some have chose to leave their country, using their dual nationality. Roman Abramovich remains in Great Britain, and Alisher Ousmanov, the owner of the Megafon telephone group and Kommersant media, in Uzbekistan. Other oligarchs have even renounced their Russian nationality – Le Monde has listed 6 of them, the latest being the oilman Igor Makarov.
However, the Russian president leaves no other choice to the oligarchs than to finance his war effort: some have already paid with their lives for their opposition to the war. From the start of the invasion, Vladimir Putin had summoned the most important of them to a meeting in the Kremlin. “Billionaires owe all their fortune to Putin,” says Galia Ackerman, a historian specializing in Russia. The president can control them as he wants; the recalcitrant know that they risk ending up in prison, like Khodorkovsky in 2005, or worse…”
The oligarch Oleg Tinkov dared to publicize his misadventures. This Russian banker, opposed to the war in Ukraine from day one, said in an interview with Forbes that he was forced to sell, “for almost nothing”, 35% of the shares he held in his online bank. “Tinkov”. He decided to give up his Russian passport at the end of October 2022. “Now to have it both ways, as [the oligarchs] have been doing for 30 years by having a house in an upmarket part of London while maintaining a friendship with Putin , is no longer possible”, explains the banker. “Those who criticize the war too openly risk the nationalization of their company”, assures Professor Daniel Treisman. The takeover of Western sectors in Russia, such as Danone recently, already seems to announce the color.
