LONDON (Reuters) – Billionaire Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman has instructed his employees in a letter that the battle in Ukraine is driving a wedge between the 2 japanese Slav peoples of Russia and Ukraine who’ve been brothers for hundreds of years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, shortly after recognising two Russian-backed insurgent areas of Ukraine as impartial.
He mentioned he had ordered the operation to guard individuals, together with Russian residents, from “genocide” – an accusation the West calls baseless propaganda.
In a letter was first reported by the Financial Times, Fridman, who was born in 1964 in Ukraine however earned billions in Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed 1991, wrote that struggle was not the reply.
“I used to be born in Western Ukraine and lived there till I used to be 17. My dad and mom are Ukrainian residents and reside in Lviv, my favorite metropolis,” Fridman wrote within the letter, excerpts of which Reuters noticed.
“But I’ve additionally spent a lot of my life as a citizen of Russia, constructing and rising companies. I’m deeply connected to the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and see the present battle as a tragedy for them each.”
Russian armour pushed into Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis on Sunday and explosions rocked oil and fuel installations on the fourth day of the most important assault on a European state since World War Two.
Fridman and his companions management Alfa Group, which incorporates Russia’s prime personal financial institution Alfa Bank and its largest meals retailer X5 Retail Group.
Fridman and Alfa didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Fridman can also be the co-founder of LetterOne, or L1, which has long-term investments of greater than 25 billion kilos ($33.5 billion) within the know-how, power, well being and retail sectors.
“I don’t make political statements, I’m a businessman with duties to my many hundreds of staff in Russia and Ukraine,” Fridman wrote. “I’m satisfied, nevertheless, that struggle can by no means be the reply.”
“This disaster will value lives and harm two nations who’ve been brothers for tons of of years. While an answer appears frighteningly far off, I can solely be a part of these whose fervent want is for the bloodshed to finish. I’m certain my companions share my view.”
One of Fridman’s long-term companions, Pyotr Aven, attended a gathering on the Kremlin with Putin and different Russian billionaires final week, Russia’s TASS information company reported.
($1 = 0.7460 kilos)
(Additional reporting by Alex Marrow in Moscow; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
