A Russian billionaire is fighting back against the war in Ukraine. The phenomenon is not common, at least in public, which makes the words of Oleg Tinkov all the more easy. On his Instagram account on Tuesday, the founder of online banking Tinkoff castigated an “absurd” war in Ukraine and called on the West to help end this “massacre”.
“90 percent of Russians are AGAINST this war,” said the 54-year-old businessman, emphasizing that he sees “NO beneficiaries of this absurd war” in which “innocent people and soldiers are dying.”
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Founded in 2006, Tinkoff Bank has grown rapidly, claiming to be Russia’s third-largest retail bank in 2020, behind state-owned giants Sberbank and VTB. Tinkoff Bank claims to have around 20 million customers today. Oleg Tinkov had also managed the Tinkoff-Saxo cycling team, in which notably Alberto Contador and Peter Sagan rode.
“When they woke up with a hangover, the generals found they had a crappy army,” he claimed, adding, “And how good can the army be when cronyism and subservience permeate everything else in the country?” »
Subject to UK sanctions
The 50-year-old, a quirky billionaire, revealed in early 2020 that he had leukemia shortly after he was arrested in London, the United States accused him of tax evasion and called for his extradition. He was later released on bail and treated in London. While he left the post of CEO of Tinkoff Bank in 2020, Oleg Tinkov is currently the target of British sanctions decided in connection with the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Dear ‘West Collective’, please give Mr. Putin a clear way out so that he can save face and end this massacre. Please be more rational and humanitarian, Tinkov added in his text on Instagram in English. This is one of the Russian businessman’s harshest criticisms of the offensive launched on February 24 in Ukraine.
For its part, Tinkoff Bank issued a press release emphasizing that it did not want to comment on this personal opinion and recalled that the billionaire no longer makes decisions about the operations of the Tinkoff brand companies. “He is not an employee of Tinkoff, he has not been to Russia for a long time and has been dealing with matters of his health in recent years,” the statement said.