British entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin Group Richard Branson asked to lift sanctions against the founder of Tinkoff Bank Oleg Tinkov. This is reported by The Times.
Branson wrote to the British government with a letter — in which he said that he considers the sanctions against Tinkov «unreasonable.» “Although he was a businessman, he was never an oligarch. I have always known him as an independent dynamic entrepreneur, ”The Times quotes a fragment of Branson’s letter.
According to the publication, Branson and Tinkov have been friends for a long time, the Russian entrepreneur also turned to Brason for business advice.
In March 2022, the UK imposed sanctions against 59 Russian citizens and companies, including businessman Oleg Tinkov. Initially, the sanctions involved transport restrictions — including the arrest of private jets and yachts — but a day later, such restrictions were lifted against Tinkov and the head of Millhouse, Yevgeny Shvidler.
In April of the same year, Tinkov called the invasion of Ukraine «insane war”, which does not have “a single beneficiary”, and later sold his stake in Tinkoff to Vladimir Potanin’s company Interros.
A few weeks later, Tinkov said that after his words about the war, employees of the presidential administration contacted the leadership of Tinkoff and threatened to nationalize the bank if the employees did not cut ties with its founder. Later, the bank announced plans to rebrand and abandon the name Tinkov in the name.
In 2017, Tinkov proposed to restore the monarchy in Russia as «the most correct form of government for vast Russia», and to lead the country, in his opinion, should be Vladimir Putin. In the same year, at the request of Tinkov, a case was opened against Alexei Pskovitin, the author of the Nemagia YouTube blog, who shot a critical video about the banker. The blogger's home in Kemerovo was broken into by operatives who arrived from Moscow.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Richard Branson flew to Ukraine several times. In particular, he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. In addition, the businessman called on Western countries to strengthen support for Ukraine: to supply more weapons and organize fundraising in support of Ukrainians more often.