The Russian business elite, the oligarchs who control the dozens of large energy and commodity companies that concentrate the bulk of Russian GDP and which the US Treasury Department considers as part of the “parastatal framework & rdquor; of the Vladimir Putin regime, have begun to suffer from the economic sanctions approved after the invasion of Ukraine. The value of your companies has collapsed in world stock markets, the sanctions progressively reduce their operations in the West and the actual or potential threats of freezing their personal assets are causing them to begin to take flight from what were their winter quarters or golden retreats. Hasty divestments in real estate and sports, mega yachts setting sail for safe ports not too far from the Black Sea, resigning from chairing boards of directors… The oligarchs seek immediate liquidity in the face of foreseeable confiscations and corralling of the ruble.
The rout is particularly visible in London, where Russian interests in the City and its presence in the most luxurious neighborhoods of the British capital had come to forge the expression ‘Londongrado’. But the trail of Russian interests can be followed much more closely, in the law firms or real estate agencies that have specialized in representing their interests in Spain, the fuel depots co-owned by the Russian Lukoil in the port of Barcelona, the Russian presence, as residents or investors, in the most affluent neighborhoods of Barcelona or Madrid –or in mansions on the coast–, and (at least until the invasion made things difficult) in the clientele of the most exclusive shops in axes such as Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona. These are sectors in which the sanctions also have a cost for the Spanish economy that it is inevitable to assume. Also collateral victims are wealthy Russians who belong to a cultured and cosmopolitan elite and are not aligned with Putin.
With the commercial interests of their companies in Western markets at stake, and much of their personal assets Also, some of the great Russian tycoons have released messages of temporization in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when not of ambiguous empathy with the victims of the conflict. This is the case of the second Russian oil company, Lukoil, chaired by Vagit Alekperov (who should not have been taken by surprise by the explosion after having sent thousands of barrels of fuel a day to the forces preparing the invasion) or that of Mijaíl Fridman, main shareholder of Dia supermarkets and the Russian bank Alfa Bank (and a partner of the son of the Russian Interior Minister), or that of Alexei Mordashov, president of the Severstal metallurgical and energy conglomerate.
The tycoons who made their fortune with the dark privatization of public goods during the Soviet period, who paid the necessary tolls to go from Yeltsin’s court to Putin’s and who in almost all cases have passed through the vast revolving doors between politics and business their destinies are inseparably linked to those of the Russian president and have served the military apparatus with supplies or commercial agreements when the Kremlin has ordered it. Do not forget that the Russian president gathered 13 of them in the Kremlin on the day of the invasion. More than enough reasons to become object of reprisals from the West. But we must be realistic, and not speculate that this ruling class has enough autonomy to put pressure on Putin, let alone question his position. Above the oligarchs threatened by sanctions, there is an autocrat to whom they owe their fortunes and that he has their destinies in his hands.