Oligarchs and top managers are fleeing the RSPP on the eve of the meeting with Putin

15 businessmen and top managers will leave the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), including billionaires Araz Agalarov (owner of Crocus Group), Leonid Fedun (co-owner of Lukoil) and Alisher Usmanov (co-owner of Megafon and Metalloinvest "). Informed sources told RBC about this, he writes moscowtimes.ru.

Alisher Usmanov

According to the interlocutors of the publication, the board of the main lobbying organization of large business has also left the former general director of the Russian Post, Maxim Akimov, the ex-head of Sybur, Dmitry Konov, the chairman of the board of directors of the Siberian Generating Company (SGK), Stepan Solzhenitsyn, and the former managing partner of the consulting company EY to the CIS countries Alexander Ivlev.

The main reason for the departure of businessmen and top managers from the board of RSPP is sanctions and resignation from management positions in companies, the RBC interlocutor explained. According to him, formally they are no longer related to business and want "as little publicity as possible."

Ivlev confirmed to the publication that he is going to leave the board of the RSPP due to the departure of EY from Russia. Konov's representative said that the businessman has not worked at Sybur since March 2022 and considers it wrong to formally remain in the role of a member of the RSPP board.

In "Pochte Rossii" Akimov's departure from the post of RSPP was explained by the change of the general director. Instead of Akymov, the company is headed by Mikhail Volkov, so "Pochta" asked the organization to update the data on the key representative.

Back in January, the oligarch Usmanov appealed to the head of the RSPP Alexander Shokhin with a request to release him from membership in the board of the business organization. The billionaire explained it as "retirement and withdrawal from active activities."

The decisions of businessmen and top managers will be announced at the next congress of the RSPP, which will be held on March 16, the RBC source said. As previously reported by Bloomberg, the congress will be attended by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. This will be the first big meeting of the head of state with leaders and owners of large businesses in an hour. Putin will demand more responsibility from them, including due to the growing budget deficit against the background of the war in Ukraine.

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