The war against Ukraine has been a cold shower for Russia’s billionaires. People used to dividing their time between Moscow, London, and the Côte d’Azur lost access to their Western assets, and their yachts, villas, companies, and bank accounts were at risk of being frozen or seized.
At home, the rules of the game have also changed dramatically: the Kremlin increasingly expects big business to support the war and cut ties with “unfriendly countries” as part of its mandatory corporate social responsibility. Otherwise, its beneficiaries risk losing their freedom, their assets, or both.
Caught between problems in Russia and the West, Forbes Russia list figures are resorting to a variety of survival strategies. The end result will be the disappearance of oligarchs from Russia once and for all.
The number of Russian billionaires who have openly condemned their country’s invasion of Ukraine can be counted on one hand. By far the most uncompromising example is Oleg Tinkov, who sold his banking business for far less than it was worth, left the country, and renounced his Russian citizenship.
Even Pavel Durov, despite having left Russia back in 2014 after losing control of the VKontakte social network that he founded, has never directly condemned the war, limiting himself to calling it a “tragic conflict.”
However, experience has shown that in today’s Russia, businessmen don’t necessarily need to vocally condemn the war for the authorities to take an interest in their assets and accuse them of supporting Ukraine. Vodka magnate Yuri Shefler and Denis Shtengelov, owner of the food holding company KDV Group, have both long lived abroad and avoided making public statements on the war, yet they still lost their Russian businesses in the nationalization campaign driven by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Their Russian companies were designated “extremist organizations” for allegedly assisting the Ukrainian armed forces.
In Shefler’s case, the accusations likely relate to a Latvian company that donated part of its proceeds from the sale of a limited edition vodka to help Ukraine. Shtengelov, meanwhile, allegedly supplied food to Ukrainian militias and funneled money to hostile jurisdictions. The businessman himself denied taking any position on the matter, but that did not protect his business from confiscation.
Another major business to have been nationalized is Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Shareholder Dmitry Kamenshchik had made no statements about the war, and there is no public information about him having been involved in assisting Ukraine. But there are other factors at play: the asset’s strategic importance, the billionaire’s foreign citizenship (he allegedly holds Turkish and UAE passports), and the apparent interest in the airport of Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend and close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Still, a few major businessmen have managed to reside in the West while retaining a significant portion of their wealth, such as metals magnate and former presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov and Yandex tech company co-founder Arkady Volozh. Judging by their experience, this option requires refraining from supporting Ukraine in any form, not having any influential enemies, and selling off Russian assets to new owners.
In the first weeks of the invasion, before the new wartime rules were clear, about a dozen people from the Forbes Russia list were careless enough to express humanitarian views on the subject. In a letter to the company’s employees, Vladimir Lisin, the head of steelmaker NLMK, called the war “a tragedy that is difficult to justify or explain.” Alfa Bank co-founder Mikhail Fridman stated that “war can never be the solution.” Fridman’s partner, Petr Aven, left Russia and sold off his Russian assets, but made no public statements about the war.
Even businessmen known for their ties to the state expressed pacifist views. Metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov said the war was a “shock” and called for a peaceful resolution. Soon after, the billionaire announced his retirement and left for his native Uzbekistan, while simultaneously working to get Western sanctions against him lifted. His Russian business continues to operate, including by housing refugees from Ukraine in its social facilities and providing support to the families of those mobilized.
EuroChem fertilizer owner Andrey Melnichenko, who moved to Dubai and obtained UAE citizenship in 2022, caused a stir when he gave an interview to the Financial Times the following year in which he affirmatively answered the question of whether he considered Russia’s actions in Ukraine a crime. Subsequently, however, the businessman clarified that he was referring specifically to attacks on civilian targets.
Several months later, the Russian authorities filed a lawsuit for the return of Melnichenko’s shares in SIBECO, which owns thermal power plants in Siberia, to the state. The Prosecutor General’s Office subsequently reached a settlement with the billionaire and withdrew the lawsuit: a rare occurrence at a time of wartime nationalization. Perhaps the businessman managed to avoid confiscation by softening his stance and agreeing to assume increased social responsibility (such as by funding the Sirius educational center).
Another special case is Roman Abramovich, who attempted to play the role of mediator in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. The businessman sold Chelsea Football Club and proposed using the proceeds to aid victims of the war on both sides. But the funds remain frozen, since the British authorities want to see them transferred to humanitarian aid purposes in Ukraine.
Interestingly, there are few openly hawkish billionaires on the other side of the divide. There are of course some who unequivocally support the war, like Federation Council senator Suleiman Kerimov, State Duma deputy Andrei Skoch, and Vladimir Litvinenko, Russia’s richest rector.
There are, however, plenty of business magnates who actively support the war without making public statements. Igor Altushkin, owner of the copper mining group Russkaya Med, sponsors the Ural Battalion, a Russian assault unit operating in the Luhansk region. Andrey Bokarev, Altushkin’s business partner and former co-owner of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, allegedly owned a private military company.
Another slightly less overt form of support for the war is to offer various incentives for those involved in the fighting. Companies that offer employees a signing-up bonus include Viktor Rashnikov’s Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works and the Sportmaster chain of stores owned by the Fartushnyak brothers, who are themselves from Ukraine.
Many billionaires try to sit on the fence by making pacifist statements while their companies aid the Russian military. A prime example is Oleg Deripaska, who has spoken a lot about peace and called for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, his companies produce armored vehicles, while a Rusal subsidiary has recruited contract soldiers.
Sometimes the gap between words and actions is quite simply absurd. Novatek gas producer, which not so long ago was paying people to fight, is now trying to get sanctions against it lifted by hiring lobbyists in Washington to prove it has nothing to do with the war. Novatek’s co-owner Gennady Timchenko is simultaneously attempting to convince the courts that his close and long-established ties to Putin do not necessarily mean that he supports the war. Had he been a less loyal figure, the Prosecutor General’s Office may well have considered him a new target for property confiscation.
The overwhelming majority of Russia’s billionaires have chosen a strategy of silence. The maximum demonstration of loyalty they are prepared to make is sending humanitarian aid to the front or to affected Russian regions—preferably on the quiet.
Some Russian billionaires still hold assets in Europe: a powerful incentive to keep quiet unless absolutely necessary. Furthermore, many are in the process of attempting to get sanctions against them lifted through the courts. More than forty businessmen have already succeeded in doing so.
Fertilizer tycoon Vyacheslav Kantor, for example, left Russia back in the 1990s. In March, he secured the lifting of EU sanctions against him. Kantor is said to have sent humanitarian aid to refugees from Ukraine. However, he has not yet had any problems with the Russian authorities, possibly due to his personal relationship with Putin and his connections in Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
Vadim Moshkovich, the founder of Rusagro, an agriculture major, was less fortunate. The billionaire tried to get sanctions lifted and prove he wasn’t part of Putin’s inner circle. In May, a criminal case was opened against him in Russia and he was arrested. It’s unclear whether the attack against him was primarily motivated by his perceived lack of loyalty, or whether Rusagro simply proved too tempting a morsel to his competitors on the agricultural market. The oil magnate Mikhail Gutseriev has also failed to get sanctions against him lifted.
This balancing act between business as usual, cautious pacifism, and humanitarian initiatives in Russia will remain the primary survival strategy for Russia’s billionaires. Even direct beneficiaries of the war like the tech mogul Ivan Tavrin, who made the Forbes list thanks to his acquisition of Western assets since 2022, have not publicly expressed support for the Russian army.
Wartime survival strategies may vary, but together they increasingly signal an end to Russia’s oligarchs: something Putin has sought ever since he began his reign a quarter of a century ago. The war has provided the Kremlin with fundamentally new tools for deoffshorization and the repatriation of large fortunes, which are then redistributed to either state conglomerates or the president’s inner circle.
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