The former head of Alfa-Bank Petr Aven spoke about his life under sanctions. According to him, he does not know how to survive.
“Will I be able to hire a cleaning lady or a driver? I don’t drive a car … maybe my stepdaughter will drive. We don’t understand how to survive,” Aven said in financial Times interview, sitting, according to the newspaper, at a table laden with fruits and snacks, in his London apartment with a two-level dining room.
The businessman believes that sanctions against Russian businessmen will not affect Putin and calls them unfair.
“[Но] I don’t complain when people die,” he says.
The billionaire plans to challenge the sanctions, but says he can’t find a lawyer to demand that enough funds be unfrozen.
Aven does not plan to leave the UK, where he is now, because if he leaves, he may no longer return to the country.
Aven denies closeness to Putin and says that Alfa Group tried to be “absolutely out of politics”, and at a meeting with Putin after the start of the “special operation” he represented the company, and not himself personally.
“It’s very strange to get sanctions just because you meet with the president,” he said.
Recall that Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and their partners German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev fell under EU and UK sanctions.
In justifying European sanctions, Aven was called “one of the closest” oligarchs to Putin. Aven also has Latvian citizenship, after the introduction of European sanctions against him, the country’s Ministry of Justice announced that it was looking for the possibility of depriving him of citizenship.
Pyotr Aven (March 16, 1955) is a Russian economist and businessman.
Since 1994, he has been a member of the Supervisory Board of the Alfa Group consortium. From 1994 to 2011 – President of Alfa-Bank.
From June 2011 to March 1, 2022 – Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alfa-Bank.
According to Forbes magazine, in 2021 he took 30th place in the list of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia, having a personal fortune of $ 5.3 billion.
