Russian oligarch Andrei Melnitschenko (50) is one of Putin’s closest confidants – and is now apparently opposed to the Kremlin despot’s war of aggression!
In an email to Reuters news agency, the coal and fertilizer entrepreneur wrote: “The events in Ukraine are truly tragic. We urgently need peace.” Otherwise there is a risk of a global food crisis, since fertilizer prices are already too high for many farmers.
The supply chains are already under pressure because of the corona pandemic. “Now this will lead to even higher food inflation in Europe and likely food shortages in the world’s poorest countries,” Melnichenko said.
He is Russian but has a Ukrainian mother. He therefore feels “great pain and disbelief when I see fraternal peoples fighting and dying”. But the multi-billionaire is not only hoping for peace out of pity and concern for the global food supply – but also out of fear for his own fortune, which is the equivalent of a good 15 billion euros.
Then: Because of the harsh economic sanctions imposed by the West, e.g. confiscated his luxury yacht (142 meters long, worth 550 million euros). Melnichenko is outraged about this. Compared to the “star” he called the sanctions “unjustified and unfounded”.
Other oligarchs such as Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and Oleg Deripaska had also previously pushed for peace.
Melnichenko is the founder of two large Russian companies: he owns one of the largest Russian fertilizer manufacturers, EuroChem, and Suek, a huge coal producer. In 2021, according to Forbes, Melnichenko was the second richest man in Russia.