Moscow (The Times Groupe)- Former billionaire Russian oligarch Oleg Tinkov, one of the few prominent Russian business figures to condemn his country’s war on Ukraine, took aim at the Kremlin in an Instagram post Tuesday, writing he hopes Ukraine will prevail.
In an Instagram post Tuesday, Russian oligarch Tinkov, who lives outside Russia, called the war “evil” and said he hoped Ukraine would win because it was the “good” side and good prevailed over evil.
With more than 300,000 likes, the post quickly went viral.
International attention has been drawn to Tinkov’s previous condemnations of the war, including this April 19 Instagram post in which he called the war “crazy” and called for an end to the violence.
According to Forbes and the New York Times, Tinkov sold his 35% stake in Tinkoff Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, to a company controlled by Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin, at a steep discount because he opposed the war and said to the Times he fears assassination by the Kremlin.
Tinkov joined Alexei Mordashov, Oleg Deripaska, and Mikhail Fridman as the first Russian billionaires to publicly denounce the war. Tinkov’s fortune plummeted to about $800 million, according to Forbes, as Tinkoff Bank’s share price plummeted. In 2020, Tinkov resigned as Tinkoff Bank’s chairman after being diagnosed with acute leukemia and battling graft-versus-host disease following a bone marrow transplant. In October, Tinkov agreed to pay the U.S. government $506 million to settle tax fraud charges. Tinkov was arrested in 2020 after U.S. authorities allege he hid more than $1 billion in assets and income related to his renunciation of American citizenship.
In an interview with Forbes, Tinkov said he sold his stake in Tinkoff Bank for less than 3% what it was worth at the end of 2021, saying he wanted to leave something to his family when he passes away.