At a closed-door meeting on March 26, Vladimir Putin urged major business leaders to make voluntary payments to the state budget in order to help cover Russia’s military needs, according to a report by the independent publication The Bell, citing sources familiar with the discussion. The meeting took place on the sidelines of a congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) in Moscow.
According to sources who spoke with The Bell, Putin told those attending the meeting that he intended to continue the war. “He said, ‘we’re going to continue fighting,’” one of The Bell’s sources summarized Putin as saying. Another said the discussion centered on Russia advancing to the administrative borders of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region. Putin then suggested that Russia’s business leaders make voluntary contributions to aid in those efforts. According to one of The Bell’s sources, the idea to elicit support from the business community came from Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, who had sent Putin a letter ahead of the meeting proposing to “shake down business in a difficult time for the country.”
Some participants took action immediately. Billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, according to two sources cited by The Bell, pledged to contribute 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) to the budget. According to The Financial Times, steel magnate Oleg Deripaska has also agreed to make a contribution.
The RSPP congress also saw an awkward moment when a technical glitch prevented the Russian national anthem from playing at the opening. The union’s head, Alexander Shokhin, began singing it a cappella, prompting the entire audience to join in.
A day after the report from The Bell was published, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, claiming: “It is not true that this came from Igor Sechin. It is not true that there was talk of money for the special military operation. It is not true that Putin made such a request.”
Peskov did confirm that such an initiative had been discussed at Putin’s closed-door meeting with business leaders. However, in the Kremlin press secretary’s telling, it had been proposed by one of the participants, and that Putin had merely “welcomed” the proposal.
