Egyptian billionaire Nagib Saviris did not smile when he expressed his thoughts on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble if he expected civil unrest in Egypt due to food shortages caused by the war, Saviris, chairman and CEO of Orascom Investment Holding, said he did not – he said people would know that the crisis was caused by Putin and not their own government.
“I don’t think so,” Saviris said on Wednesday, “because people understand that this crisis is not ours. I want to say that this is the creation of a crazy man who woke up one day and decided to invade a peaceful country without warning. “
Saviris then mentioned French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to continue his diplomatic engagements with Putin more than three months after the war that killed thousands of civilians and compared several Ukrainian cities.
Macron stressed in May that Putin should not be humiliated and that the door should be left open to improve diplomatic relations. The call echoed that of some Western analysts, who say Putin must be able to “save face” in the midst of this war in order to reach a diplomatic agreement.
Aerial view shows destroyed houses after a coup in the town of Privilege in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass on June 14, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Aris Messinis AFP | Getty Images
Saviris, among many others, responded to these calls with criticism.
“Contrary to what Mr Macron says, we should not be interested in his feelings, we should not hurt his feelings. We have to win this war, because this is another Hitler in the process of creation. “
“It’s the same story in World War II,” he continued. “It started like this, we calmed Hitler down by giving him part of Czechoslovakia. Then he enters Poland, occupies all the work and goes on and on – he will not stop there.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in London did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
To appease or not to appease?
Putin says his goal is to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine, a sovereign democracy with a Jewish president. The Kremlin insists it is not aimed at civilians, despite growing and well-documented evidence to the contrary, including bombed residential areas and the discovery of mass graves in cities attacked and occupied by Russian troops.
Russian forces are now occupying about 20 percent of Ukraine, and bloody fighting is raging in the eastern region of Donbass, which the Kremlin has identified as an “unconditional priority.”
“Trying to avoid confrontation can always be seen as a weakness and will not be a deterrent,” Saviris said. “And then the end, what are we going to do? We see all these Ukrainians dying before our eyes, are we going to watch this? No? So, I’m not for reassuring this man.”
An excavation team carries the corpse of a Ukrainian civilian killed by the Russian army in a forest near Bucha, Ukraine – June 13, 2022.
Dominika Zażycka Nurfoto | Getty Images
Several critics have described Russia’s president as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who invaded the Sudetenland in early World War II, part of the former Czechoslovakia, which was inhabited by Sudeten Germans at the time. Historians point to the failed attempts of some European leaders at the time to appease Hitler, which did not slow down his military pressure across the continent.
Some Ukrainian and Western officials and analysts are now warning that other countries such as Moldova, Georgia or the Baltic states could be next if Putin is not stopped. The Kremlin has not announced such goals and initially envisioned its invasion of Ukraine with the aim of joining NATO.
Tanks of pro-Russian troops drive on the street during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the town of Popasna in Luhansk region, Ukraine, May 26, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko Reuters
But almost four months after the war, Putin appears to have changed his rationale for continuing what he calls “Russia’s special military operation.” In the last week, he recalled 18th-century Russian Tsar Peter the Great, who is credited with modernizing and expanding Russia through expansionist wars, in comments widely believed to justify imperial expansion and conquest of Ukrainian land.
“Peter the Great has been waging the Great Northern War for 21 years. He seems to be at war with Sweden, he took something from them,” Putin was quoted as saying by Reuters. Then he added: “He didn’t take anything from them, he came back [what was Russia’s]”
Putin also mentioned the invasion of Ukraine, saying: “Obviously, we also had to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthening [the country]. And if we start from the fact that these core values are at the core of our existence, we will certainly be able to solve the tasks we face. “
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