“Flee, fight or stand still.” Most of the Russian billionaires reputed to be close to Vladimir Putin have relied since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on the famous maxim of defense against Western sanctions. Affected, these “oligarchs” have seen their accounts frozen, their yachts and homes seized, but they are circumventing or fighting the sanctions, and waiting for better days.
Some initially tried to use their fame to soften the Western authorities, like Petr Aven, who made his fortune in post-Soviet oil in particular, assuring in the FT that he had been targeted by sanctions for having “taken Putin on the phone” or not knowing “how to survive” with frozen accounts. Roman Abramovich, the most famous of the “oligarchs”, plays the matchmaker between Moscow and the West but still had to sell the English football club Chelsea, one of the jewels of his empire.
He has since been seen several times in Russia, in Israel – of which he is also a citizen – as well as in Dubai or Turkey, countries which have not taken measures against rich Russians. Dubai, in particular, is opening its arms to them to the point where a district has been renamed “Little Moscow”. Petr Aven, ex-co-owner of the conglomerate Letter One with Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, has taken up residence in Latvia, of which he is a national, while Oleg Deripaska would have opted for Moscow.