According to one report, some Russian oligarchs fear that attending Vladimir Putin’s annual International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg could make them targets of Western sanctions amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which takes place this year on June 15-18, is a business event that has been held since 1997. According to Russian state media agency Tass, the hosting forum is the Roscongress Foundation, saying that this year representatives from more than 90 countries will take part.
According to a Bloomberg report, many Russian oligarchs and business leaders plan to keep a low profile this year in hopes of avoiding being hit by Western sanctions, first imposed in response to Russian President Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. .
According to the publication, three unidentified people familiar with the situation said some have urged SPIEF organizers to remove their names from their badges so they can’t be identified, while at least two others say they canceled the event be left early in order to miss them. Speech of the leader
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The four-day event will discuss Russia’s trade and economic development and global investment policy. According to Tass, Putin will traditionally attend the SPIEF 2022 plenary session on June 17.
The plenary session will be moderated by Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of state broadcaster RT and media group Rossiya Segodnya.
According to Roscongress, more than 2,700 business representatives, including more than 1,000 business leaders, have confirmed their attendance at the forum before June 1, and representatives from all regions of Russia have confirmed their personal attendance.
Newsweek has not been able to independently verify the Bloomberg report and has contacted the Roscongress Foundation for comment.
Many western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russian oligarchs to put pressure on the Russian president over the ongoing war that began on February 24.
Some Russian oligarchs, including Oleg Tinkov, Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman, have spoken out against the war.
Fridman, one of Russia’s richest men and chairman of conglomerate Alfa Group, became one of the first Russian oligarchs on the EU sanctions list on February 28, along with his former business partner Pyotr Aven., whom the EU has named as one of them Putin’s “closest oligarchs”.
French authorities froze Fridman’s luxurious villa in Saint-Tropez on May 3 due to sanctions, Ukraine’s Radio Free Liberty first reported. He was described as “a major Russian financier and intermediary of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s inner circle”.