Russia-Ukraine war: Russian billionaires send stern message to Vladimir Putin

 Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have called for an end to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war triggered by President Vladimir Putin's assault on the neighbouring country. Another billionaire in Moscow said that the war was going to be a catastrophe, according to a Reuters report.

The Russian currency plunged about 30 per cent against the US dollar after Western nations announced moves to block some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system and to restrict Moscow's use of its massive foreign currency reserves.

The economic squeeze got tighter when the US announced more sanctions to immobilise any assets of the Russian central bank in the United States or held by Americans. The Biden administration estimated that the move could impact "hundreds of billions of dollars" of Russian funding. Biden administration officials said Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Japan, the European Union and others will join the US in targeting the Russian central bank, according to a report in the Associated Press.

TRAGEDY FOR PEOPLE OF RUSSIA, UKRAINE

Billionaire Fridman, who was born in western Ukraine, said that the conflict was driving a wedge between the two eastern Slav peoples of Russia and Ukraine who have been brothers for centuries, according to the Reuters report.

"I was born in Western Ukraine and lived there until I was 17. My parents are Ukrainian citizens and live in Lviv, my favourite city," Fridman wrote in the letter, Reuters reported.

"But I have also spent much of my life as a citizen of Russia, building and growing businesses. I am deeply attached to the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and see the current conflict as a tragedy for them both."

PEACE IS IMPORTANT

The Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, used a post on Telegram to call for peace talks to begin "as fast as possible".

"Peace is very important," said Deripaska, who is the founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal, in which he still owns a stake via his shares in its parent company En+ Group.

On February 21, Deripaska said there would not be a war.

CRISIS TO DAMAGE TWO NATIONS

"This crisis will cost lives and damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years," Fridman said. "While a solution seems frighteningly far off, I can only join those whose fervent desire is for the bloodshed to end. I'm sure my partners share my view," he said.

One of Fridman's long-term partners, Pyotr Aven, attended a meeting at the Kremlin with Putin and 36 other major Russian businessmen last week, the Kremlin said.

WAR GOING TO BE CATASTROPHE

A billionaire in Moscow told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the war was going to be a catastrophe.

"It is going to be catastrophic in all senses: for the economy, for relations with the rest of the world, for the political situation," the billionaire said.

The billionaires who gathered for a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday were silent, he said.

"Businessmen understand very well the consequences. But who is asking the opinion of business about this?"

US SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN BUSINESSMEN

Washington imposed sanctions on Deripaska and other influential Russians because of their ties to Putin after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which Moscow denies.

Russia's so-called oligarchs, who once exercised significant influence over President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, are facing economic chaos after the West imposed severe sanctions on Russia over Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Putin, after consulting his security council of senior officials, said he ordered the special military operation to protect people, including Russian citizens, from "genocide" - an accusation the West calls baseless propaganda.