Oleg Y. Tinkov, founder of one of Russia’s largest banks, Tinkoff, criticized the Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine as “crazy” in a social media post in which he said he did not see any beneficiaries of the war and 90 percent of Russians did not support the war. The very next day, the Kremlin contacted bank executives and threatened to nationalize the bank if it refused to sever ties with Tinkov, who founded the bank in 2006, the rare self-made Russian billionaire told the New York Times. Last week, he sold a 35% stake in the bank to a Russian mining tycoon with closer ties to Putin, something he said he was forced to do by the Russian government, according to the Times. Tinkov – who is valued at more than $ 8.2 billion, according to Bloomberg – said he was not allowed to negotiate the price, telling the newspaper he felt “like a hostage – you take what they offer you”. The 35% stake was valued at more than $ 20 billion on the London Stock Exchange last year, according to the Times. Without revealing the price, he said he sold his stake for a low 3 percent of what he thought was its true value. The 53-year-old oligarch told Times Sunday that he had hired bodyguards after being informed by friends about contacts with the Russian security services that his life was in danger. He said many of his businessmen and government friends who were worried about their wallets agreed with his criticism of the war, but were afraid to speak out. “I realize that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Tinkov told the Times, adding that he believed Putin would not be in power for long. “I thought the Putin regime was bad. “But of course I had no idea it would take such a catastrophic scale.” The bank, which said Tinkov sold its entire stake in the company on Thursday, disagreed with his account of how the deal collapsed, telling the Times that “there were no threats of any kind against the bank’s leadership. ” Tinkov said the billionaire had not been in Moscow for years and was “not involved in anything.” Tinkov had not been in Russia since 2019 when he left for treatment for leukemia. He resigned as the company’s leader, but retained his majority stake. Tinkov said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin “would not be in power for long.” Following Tinkov’s Instagram post on April 19, pro-Russian Russians posted their shredded Tinkoff bank cards on social media, the Times reported. A popular state television presenter blasted Tinkov, saying “his conscience is rotten.” Tinkov announced on April 22 that he would change the name of the bank, which was planned. Tinkov told the newspaper that he was already frantically trying to sell his stake as its value plummeted after the United States and its allies imposed severe financial sanctions on Russian financial institutions. “I do not believe in the future of Russia,” he told the Times. “Most importantly, I am not prepared to associate my brand and name with a country that attacks its neighbors for no reason at all.” In October 2021, Tinkov was sentenced to pay more than $ 500,000,000 to settle a federal tax fraud case in the United States – more than double what he had tried to deceive the government through a plan to renounce US citizenship and conceal large amounts who knew he was being reported by the IRS, according to the Department of Justice.
