Russian business leaders Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have spoken out against the war Russia is waging against Ukraine. The billionaires have both called for peace becoming one of the first business leaders influential in Russia to do so, British news portal The Guardian reports.
Ukrainian-born Fridman sent an email to staff at LetterOne, first reported by the Financial Times, in which he wrote that «war can never be the answer».
Describing his Ukrainian roots in Lviv, where his parents still live, he wrote: «I have also spent much of my life as a citizen of Russia, building and growing businesses. I am deeply attached to Ukrainian and Russian peoples and see the current conflict as a tragedy for them both.»
Read also: Russian rouble close to free fall in value
Fridman, who is the 128th richest person in the world, was quoted as writing: «I am a businessman with responsibilities to my many thousands of employees in Russia and Ukraine. 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. (..) While a solution seems frighteningly far off, I can only join those whose fervent desire is for the bloodshed to end.»
Oleg Deripaska, a Russian industrialist and the founder of billionaire the Russian aluminium giant Rusal, meanwhile, has called for peace talks to begin «as fast as possible» in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
As recently as February 28, Deripaska predicted that there would not be a war in Ukraine. The businessman has been on the US sanctions list since 2018 over his alleged links to the Russian government, which he has taken legal action to challenge, The Guardian reports.
Russia’s leading business people start to call for peace
