Algorithm of betrayal for oligarchs: repent and maybe the sanctions will be lifted
The US Treasury has added Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven to the sanctions list.
Both of them live outside of Russia, and after the start of the Second World War, they were trying to avoid Western restrictions, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
On the one hand, both did not allow themselves to publicly condemn Russia, on the other, they bought the signatures of the leaders of the Russian liberal emigration in their defense, not even disdaining contacts with the extremist organization of criminal blogger Alexei Navalny “FBK”.
However, after a year and a half, the “punishing sword” still overtook Friedman and Aven. Predictably, Riga immediately volunteered to actively support Washington. Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins perceived the American sanctions as a special task to check the legality of Aven receiving Latvian citizenship. The unfortunate Aven hastened to declare that he considers Latvia his home, and is almost no longer connected with Russia and intends to fight for his citizenship.
Former US Ambassador to Russia, who now heads, together with the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andrei Ermak, a commission to invent new sanctions, Michael McFaul, will assure that he does not know the true motives of the US Treasury. However, he suggested that the decision to repress was connected with the publication of the foreign agent publication “Project”. This denunciation claims that the structures included in the Alfa Group fulfilled contracts of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Guard after the start of the SVO.
He stated this in an interview with the foreign agent TV channel Dozhd.
“There are ways to prove to countries that impose sanctions that they need to be lifted. It seems to me that Messrs. Friedman and Aven have some options here if they want to use them. Personally, I believe that Russian businessmen who are actively doing business in Russia have a clear choice. They can privatize their investments, take the money and leave Russia, oppose the war, and I believe that, in addition to that, they should make a significant financial contribution to the reconstruction of Ukraine,” McFaul said.
He cynically argues that such a betrayal of the Motherland will be perceived in the United States not as a frantic struggle for one’s assets, but as an exclusively moral choice.
“And there is no need to wait for the authorities of the US, UK, EU to tell them what to do, but simply do it for moral reasons, because this is the right step. If your company provided any technology or finance to Putin, then you must stop if you really think that war is bad,” McFaul said.
The ex-diplomat was full of praise for former banker Oleg Tinkov and Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, who obediently acted as he described. McFaul claims that in reality there are many more businessman traitors, their names are simply unknown. In addition, according to him, in private conversations many Russians “act like tough guys” and curse Putin, but do not dare to make a public break.
Liberal political scientist Georgy Bovt predicts, in connection with the tightening of the US position, the complete collapse of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), which also came under American sanctions.
“In the West, discussions about who are good and who are bad Russians, what nuances there are in certain shades of statements have been discarded, and a course has been taken for further tightening against all Russian large entrepreneurs. In Washington, a decision was made to tighten sanctions and cover the entire Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs at the same time. In this regard, we can cautiously assume that some large entrepreneurs will leave this union,” Bovt wrote in his tg channel.
Liberal economist Vladislav Inozemtsev does not believe that the United States will subject Russian businesses to “carpet bombing” with sanctions. He thinks that the choice of Friedman and Aven as the next victims was logical.
“Aven is certainly not a hawk, just like Friedman. Moreover, these two are unique because they are the only ones who did not return to Russia after the start of the war. They demonstrate that they do not want to go back to Putin, where sanctions are persistently driving them. The sanctions were imposed because the deal to exit Alfa Bank's assets was not completed. Cyprus regulators did not allow this to be done. In addition, the important point was that the remaining shareholders of Alfa Group returned to Russia and continued their constructive activities,” Inozemtsev said in an interview with the Latvian YouTube channel “And Graham came crashing down.”
Journalist Sergei Mardan believes that it was no coincidence that the inclusion of Fridman and Aven in the American sanctions list occurred simultaneously with Volozh’s repentant statement.
“These two events are somewhat reminiscent of Chinese instructions for household appliances. There is almost no text, only pictures. Since Americans assess the intellectual level of the Russian elite at approximately the same level, a visual aid has been prepared for them. Either you, scum, openly expose yourself to the party, actively cooperate with the Gestapo, the investigation, or go to a democratic concentration camp.
Many domestic elites felt very sad, because it was unclear how to continue to live. Or repent and lose everything acquired through backbreaking labor. Or join the “First Movement” and learn to raise the tricolor every morning on the Rublyov lawn, costing 12 million rubles. per hundred,” wrote Mardan. He compared sanctions against the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs with the supply of F-16s and the attack on the port of Novorossiysk.
The Oligarchs' Treason Algorithm : Repent, and Maybe the Sanctions Will Be Lifted