Major donors from Russian industry are said to have offered their financial support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the initiative for the offer had come from a businessman, and denied a suggestion that Putin had asked business leaders for money at a meeting of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists.
Peskov argued that most of Russia’s entrepreneurs had made their money in the 1990s with the help of the state, “and many now consider it their duty to make such contributions.”
“This was not President Putin’s initiative, although he naturally welcomed it,” emphasized the Kremlin spokesman. He did not name the allegedly willing donor.
Previously, the independent Russian portal The Bell had reported that Putin had declared behind closed doors at the association’s meeting that Russia would continue to fight and would conquer the entire Donbass region.
He reportedly called on the entrepreneurs to make financial contributions towards the war. The idea is said to have come from Putin’s long-standing adviser Igor Sechin.
Sechin was behind the persecution of the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the dismantling of his oil company Yukos. The state-owned oil giant Rosneft, which Sechin now heads, was built on the ruins of that company.
Just at the start of the year, the government raised VAT to finance the war against Ukraine, which it launched more than four years ago. Almost 40% of Russia’s budget expenditure is now going towards the military, the security apparatus and armaments.
Meanwhile, the economy is struggling with Western sanctions. Putin recently had to admit to a decline in Russia’s gross domestic product at the start of the year.