Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko explained he only located out he’d been sanctioned by the European Union when he go through it in the news.
He instructed Swiss publication Weltwoche that on March 4 he remaining Switzerland, the place he has lived because 2009, to journey to Tanzania with his relatives to celebrate his 50th birthday.
“There I discovered that the EU had place me on the sanctions checklist,” Melnichenko mentioned. He was sanctioned on March 9, the working day after his birthday.
“A ideal current for my 50th birthday, and also so symbolic,” he mentioned.
Melnichenko advised the publication that he has considering that filed lawsuits from both of those EU and Swiss authorities around the sanctions, contacting their formal reasoning “nonsensical.”
Melnichenko is the founder of fertilizer group EuroChem and coal corporation Suek, which he claims hire 100,000 persons mixed, however he stepped down as a director of both of those organizations on the day he was sanctioned. Bloomberg estimates his wealth at $14.6 billion — down by pretty much a 3rd given that he was sanctioned.
On February 24, Melnichenko was photographed alongside 36 other Russian businesspeople assembly with Putin President Vladimir Putin and other customers of the Kremlin, which the EU stated was organized “to explore the affect of the study course of motion in the wake of Western sanctions.”
It reported that his invite shows that he was “a member of the closest circle of Vladimir Putin” and “a single of the primary businesspersons associated in economic sectors furnishing a significant resource of earnings to the Governing administration of Russia.”
In his interview with Weltwoche, Melnichenko stated that the gathering with Putin was a “standard assembly.”
“We have been all shocked about the activities in Ukraine,” he reported. He mentioned that the oligarchs and organization leaders experienced very first listened to about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the news that morning, and that the conference had taken put in the early afternoon.
“We were in an emotional point out of emergency,” he said, introducing that individuals ended up in a condition of disbelief.
Melnichenko told the publication that he did not know Putin “at all” and had in no way me him by itself. He mentioned that he experienced only satisfied him a few periods in teams of at the very least 15 folks, each and every time in his part as component of a Russian business enterprise and industrial team.
Alexei NikolskyTASS through Getty Photos
“Labeling me as a near political confidant of Putin, as an oligarch intently linked to the Russian point out, is absurd,” he claimed. “I am not an oligarch.”
Melnichenko claimed that he hadn’t expected to be sanctioned as a businessman unconnected to the state. Although he was born in Belarus and lives in Switzerland, he has a Russian passport.
“My disadvantage is clear: I am a Russian,” Melnichenko said. “Next: I’m wealthy. That’s why I am on the sanctions list.”
The EU failed to immediately respond to Insider’s ask for for comment.
Melnichenko wife was also sanctioned by the EU, largely for the reason that of her connections to EuroChem. Melnichenko reported that her sanctions built no sense and that she not often visits Russia and experienced under no circumstances fulfilled Putin.
He said that the sanctions intended his non-public and loved ones lender accounts had been locked and he couldn’t accessibility his property. Italy seized a $578 million megayacht belonging to him just three times immediately after he was sanctioned.
Melnichenko said the sanctions on him remaining EuroChem “considerably restricted.”
“Worst of all, although, my spouse and children daily life has totally fallen to pieces,” he reported. He said was not equipped to travel in the EU although his spouse and children lives in Europe.
“The small children are unable to meet their close friends, they pass up their toys and question issues that I can’t reply,” he explained.