A Russian oligarch told Bloomberg News, he does not know how to live, three weeks after he was hit with sanctions as punishment for Russian President Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.
Mikhail Fridman was sanctioned by the European Union on February 28, two weeks later the U.K sanctioned him and his last remaining back account was frozen.
Before Putin invaded Ukraine, Fridman had a net worth of $14 billion, now that has been reduced to 10 billion, on paper.
Fridman, who now lives in the UK, has an allowance of roughly £2,500 ($3,300) per month. He has to apply for a license to spend money and the British government will determine if the request is “reasonable.”
“I don’t know how to live,” he told Bloomberg. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
However, Firdman, who is Ukrainian born and whose parents lived part of the year in an apartment in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, is not comparing his problems to those of the Ukrainian people caught in Putin’s war.
“My problems are really nothing compared with their problems,” he told Bloomberg.
Fridman resigned from the board of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest privately held bank, on March 1, after the EU sanctioned him. He also stepped down from the board of directors of LetterOne, the investment firm he cofounded.
Fridman believes the EU’s sanctions are “groundless and unfair” and planned to contest them.
He told Bloomberg the EU doesn’t get how power actually works in Russia and it is “unrealistic” to think that Putin will change his course of action because Russian oligarchs are sanctioned.
“I’ve never been in any state company or state position,” Fridman says. “If the people who are in charge in the EU believe that because of sanctions, I could approach Mr. Putin and tell him to stop the war, and it will work, then I’m afraid we’re all in big trouble. That means those who are making this decision understand nothing about how Russia works. And that’s dangerous for the future.”
Fridman was the first oligarch to speak out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I do not make political statements, I am a businessman with responsibilities to my many thousands of employees in Russia and Ukraine,” Fridman said in a letter to employees at LetterOne. “I am convinced however that war can never be the answer. This crisis will cost lives and damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years.”
