Boris Mints is one of the few wealthy Russian businessmen to speak out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and against President Vladimir Putin.
Most of the country’s senior figures have remained silent on the war and avoided criticism of the Kremlin.
According to Mr Mints, there’s a simple explanation: “They’re all scared.”
The Kremlin has a reputation for cracking down on outspoken critics of President Putin, while controlling the content of Russian news channels. Unauthorized protests have also been banned in the country since 2014.
Mr Mints said “any person” who openly criticizes Putin “has reason to be concerned about personal safety”.
However, in an emailed interview, he told the BBC: “I have no intention of living in an air raid shelter like Mr Putin.”
The 64-year-old, who built his fortune through investment company O1 Group, which he founded in 2003 and sold in 2018, said the “standard way” in Russia to punish an entrepreneur for his “intolerance” towards the regime was “to open fabricated criminal proceedings against their company”.
“Such criminal cases not only affect the entrepreneurs themselves, but also their families and employees,” he said.
“Every business leader independent of [Putin] is seen as a threat as he or she may be able to fund opposition or cultivate protests – as such these people are seen as Putin’s enemies and therefore enemies of the state,” he added.
It’s a situation Mr Mints experienced first-hand, having first publicly opposed President Putin’s policies in 2014 after Crimea was annexed by Ukraine.
Mr Mints felt he had to leave Russia for Britain in 2015 “in connection with the mounting crackdown on political opposition”, with Boris Nemtsov being shot that year.
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Mr. Nemtsov was a bitter opponent of President Putin. His assassination in 2015 is the most publicized political assassination since Putin came to power. Authorities deny any involvement.
Two years later, Mr Mints’ former investment company O1 Group was “in an open conflict with the Central Bank of Russia,” he said, with court cases being launched in several different jurisdictions.
“When something like this happens, it sends a clear signal that you should leave the country immediately,” he said.
He remains the subject of ongoing legal action by the Kremlin.
Because of this action, Mr Mints suggests that the “boldest step” for wealthy Russians who dislike Mr Putin is to “go into exile in silence”, citing the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia’s richest man , but was jailed for almost a decade on charges of fraud and tax evasion, which he says were politically motivated.
Two of the country’s most prominent oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska, paused before direct criticism of Mr Putin when they separately called for peace in Ukraine.
Mr. Fridman, a billionaire banker, said any personal remark could pose a risk not only to himself but also to employees and colleagues.
However, Mr Mints was joined by Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov, founder of Tinkoff Bank and former owner of the Tinkoff-Saxo cycling team, to fight the invasion.
Mr Mints called President Putin’s actions “abhorrent” and said the invasion was “the most tragic event in recent history, not just in Ukraine and Russia but in the world”.
He also compared it to Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939.
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“This war is the result of the insanity and lust for power of one person, Vladimir Putin, backed by his inner circle,” said Mr Mints, who until 2018 was chairman of one of Russia’s largest pension fund managers.
The BBC has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
Mr Mints was first introduced to Mr Putin in the early 1990s but did not properly speak to him until January 2, 2000, two days after Mr Putin was appointed acting President of Russia.
Mr Mints, who worked under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, was keen to discuss his plans to reform local government to bring Russian democracy into the 21st century.
“Mr. Putin listened to my proposals without commenting or arguing. The next day, Putin fired me,” he said.
He knew then that Putin’s vision for his country was “miles apart” from that of the previous administration.
Mr Mints left politics and three years later began a retail stock broking business.
Mr Mints has not been sanctioned by the UK government, unlike other Russian businessmen who have been identified as having close ties to the Kremlin.
However, his name appeared on a so-called “Putin List” published by the US in 2018. Of 210 names, 114 were listed as members of or associated with government or as important businessmen.
The other 96, including Mr Mints, were listed as oligarchs who appeared to be more driven by the fact that they were worth more than $1bn (£710m) at the time than by their close ties to the Kremlin.
The father-of-four made the Forbes World Billionaires list in 2017 with a combined fortune of $1.3 billion before dropping out in 2018.
However, he rejected suggestions that he was an oligarch.
“Not every Russian businessman is pro-Putin, and neither is every wealthy Russian an ‘oligarch,'” he said. “In Russia, the term denotes a business leader who is closely associated with Putin and whose fortunes or the profits of his companies depend largely on cooperation with the Russian state.
“Russia is not just an oil field with an aluminum mine in the middle,” he added. “It’s a country of 140 million people. People there, like everywhere else, have their needs and those needs are no different from those here in the West.”
Mr Mints, an avid art collector now based in the UK, feels comfortable without the need for extra security measures to keep himself and his family safe in the UK and currently has no ambitions to return to Russia.
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