Putin asks businesses to pay for war
Hello! Welcome to your weekly guide to the Russian economy, written by Alexander Kolyandr, Irina Malkova and Alexandra Prokopenko and brought to you by The Bell. This week we analyze Putin’s call for top business to pay extra for the war in Ukraine even as the Kremlin is cashing in on surging oil prices.
Why is Putin asking businesses for contributions to the war?
This week Vladimir Putin sent two apparently contradictory signals to businesses. During a public speech to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a gathering of the country’s most important business leaders, he warned against letting undue optimism creep in over the economic benefits to Russia from the war in the Middle East. “If the market swings one way today, tomorrow it could swing the other way,” he said. But behind closed doors, it was an altogether less cautious message. As The Bell discovered, he declared that Russia would “push to the borders of the Donbas” and invited businessmen to chip in with voluntary contributions to the war effort.
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