Oleg Tinkov, who owned and sponsored a World Tour cycling team with his Tinkoff bank, has become the first Russian billionaire to have his sanctions removed since they were imposed when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
Tinkov, who made much of his fortune in banking but has a varied portfolio of business interests, became a very vocal critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Shares in his bank collapsed after the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia and Russian interests.
The UK Foreign Office lifted the sanctions after considering Tinkov's strong anti-war and anti-Putin comments. He was also supported by British businessman Richard Branson, who told the Foreign Office Tinkov was not an oligarch but a self-made man.
Speaking after the sanctions were lifted, Tinkov said he hoped the decision would encourage the “cowards” within Moscow’s elite to speak out against Putin’s war on Ukraine.
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“A mistake was made. Now they’ve fixed it,” Tinkov said in an interview with The Financial Times. “But that’s good for them, because they can show other Russian businessmen — who are united around Putin thanks to sanctions — that you can make a statement and leave Russia for the civilised world.”
Tinkov has been an outspoken critic of the war, saying it made no sense and also that the majority of people in his native Russia were not in favour of the war, which he said was “crazy”. He said a lot of other Russians of significant wealth had stopped speaking to him out of fear after his comments.
“Lots of them stopped talking to me because they’re scared. I stopped talking to others because they are cowards,” he said, adding now that he had shown sanctions could be lifted for speaking out, other Russians had to decide what side they were on.
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“They need to pick a chair and sit on it. Sitting between two chairs like they did for the last 30 years, with a house in Belgravia and being friends with Putin, doesn’t work anymore.”
The value of Tinkov Bank, which he founded, crashed from $23 billion to less than $1 billion immediately the invasion began in spring 2022 and sanctions were imposed on Russia. Tinkov said last year he was forced to sell his 35 per cent stake in the bank to a billionaire friend of Putin’s, with the price dictated to him and no negotiation allowed.
“I couldn’t discuss the price. It was like a hostage — you take what you are offered. I couldn’t negotiate,” he told the New York Times, declining to specify his location while being interviewed, due to safety concerns.
“They made me sell it because of my pronouncements. I sold it for ‘kopecks’,” he added in a reference to being forced to sell his 35 per cent stake in the bank as punishment for speaking out against the war and for what loosely translates as ‘pennies’.
He also claimed he had hired bodyguards based on what his contacts from the Russian security services had told him. Tinkov added while he has survived leukemia maybe “the Kremlin will kill me”.
He has now repeated those claims, though said he could not be certain his life was at risk. He also complained while life was much harder for him under sanctions, the Russians now running his bank did not experience the same hardship, and were even freely traveling to Europe for holidays.
“The Tinkoff senior management and others are all on holiday in St Tropez. And I suffered for nothing. Instead of being a hero for England and Europe, I faced risks, and I still do. I don’t know if Putin wants to kill me for this or not. And these people are sitting in St Tropez, running the bank and travelling the world. That’s not fair.”
