Igor Volobuev spent two decades working in the heart of Russian business, first for Gazprom and then for its subsidiary Gazprombank, where he was vice president until February this year.
Then Vladimir Putin began his war with Ukraine in late February, and Volobuev decided he could no longer live in Russia. He packed a small backpack with belongings and a pile of money and flew out of the country on March 2, pretending to go on vacation.
A few days later, he moved from Poland to Ukraine, where he spent his childhood. He is now spending his days trying to persuade the authorities to provide him with Ukrainian documents and allow him to enlist in the army.
“I want to go to the place where I can defend my homeland with weapons, I try every day,” he said in an interview in the suburbs of the capital Kyiv. “I will never return to Russia.”
Hundreds of thousands of Russians are believed to have fled the country since Putin started the war, and many intellectuals, journalists and activists have expressed opposition to the conflict. However, desertions were extremely rare among political and business elites. Despite reports of widespread concern over the invasion of Ukraine, only a handful of people have spoken out publicly to condemn the war.
On Monday, Boris Bondarev, a career diplomat seconded to Russia’s UN mission in Geneva, became Russia’s top-level diplomat, who condemned the war. When he resigned, Bondarev published a scathing letter saying he was “ashamed” of his country and called the invasion a “catastrophe.”
Bondarev said he decided to resign the day Russia began its invasion, but it took months to gather the determination to make it public.
Image taken from the passport page of Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned in May. Photo: AP
Like many fellow diplomats, Bondarev has remained in office over the past decade, despite Russia’s growing isolation from a series of crises, including the annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.
“You know it’s wrong,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s not good. But it doesn’t really touch you, your life. These bad things are happening somewhere far away. It’s not right, but that’s what most people think. “
“But now it’s very different: Russia has invaded another country. This is Ukraine, which we have always considered our brothers and attacked them in the most brutal way. Bombing of cities. They claim to be Nazis and denazified. This is something ridiculous. That’s unimaginable. “
Bondarev said he believed many of his fellow diplomats were also against the war, but never discussed it with them. “This is not something you have really talked about with other people, it is not something you can talk about openly these days,” Bondarev said. “Everyone is silent.”
Volobuev said that after 2014 he began to speak openly about his concerns about Russian policy in the workplace, and while many people were afraid to join the discussion, he said most people he knew agreed at least in part.
Igor Volobuev: “Many people in Russia are just scared.” Photo: Gleb Garanich / Reuters
“There were a few passionate Putinists at Gazprom, but most people understood exactly what country they lived in. “A lot of people in Russia are just scared,” he said.
“You have internal censorship that it is dangerous to say certain things and you live with it permanently. “Ukrainians look at it and don’t understand it because they are a free people,” he said.
Volobuev grew up in the Ukrainian city of Okhtyrka and moved to Moscow in 1989 when he was 18. After spending some time in journalism, he joined Gazprom, where he worked for 15 years before moving to become one of the vice presidents. of Gazprombank in 2015
He said he was originally a Putin supporter and voted for him in 2012, but “his eyes are open” since the Maidan revolution in 2014 and the subsequent Russian-backed war in Donbass. He wanted to return to Ukraine at the time, but said he could not for family reasons, for which he declined to give details.
“It was a choice between my homeland and my family, and then I chose my family. “On February 24 this year, I realized that I could not procrastinate any longer,” he said.
Volobuev was the middle gear in Gazprom’s machine; among the top business echelons, few have dared to break the ranks.
Oleg Tinkov, a successful billionaire who founded one of Russia’s leading banks, has so far been the most outspoken public opponent of the war among the business elite. In one of a series of critical Instagram posts, Tinkov wrote: “I don’t see ANY beneficiary of this crazy war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying. “
After his statements, Tinkov said he was forced to knock down his assets at a price to an oligarch loyal to the Kremlin. In an interview with Russian journalist Yuri Dud, he said he was sure the entire business elite supported his statements, but was too scared to say the same in public.
“I spoke personally with 12 of the top 20 on the Forbes list and they all support me, there is full consensus,” he said.
He said half of those he spoke to justified their silence by saying they feared for their tens of thousands of employees, who could be harmed if they fell out of favor with the Kremlin.
“The other half says, ‘We’re going to make a statement and then we’re going to lose our business, like you, and then what, what have you achieved?’
Putin called those who oppose Moscow’s actions “scum and traitors” that the Russian people will “spit out like a fly.” In the current climate, it is clear that public opposition to the war is making it dangerous to return to Russia.
Bondarev said he was concerned about the response to his statement and said he would “welcome” the asylum proposal in the west. Tinkov said he had hired bodyguards.
As a Russian citizen of Ukrainian descent, Volobuev’s position is slightly different. His arrival in Ukraine gave him the feeling that he had finally returned home, he said. But he believes he has a lot of work to do to convince Ukrainians of his sincerity.
“All these years I said I was Ukrainian, but I continued to live and work there. “I understand that I have to repent and prove for many years that I must be allowed to live here and that I can be trusted,” he said.
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