This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
A Russian oligarch has written a scathing assessment of President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, touching a nerve on social media where it has attracted tens of thousands of likes in just one day.
Writing on Instagram, Oleg Tinkov said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the “crazy war” that has followed has no benefit, a rare break from one of the country’s billionaires who gathered their wealth under Putin and have remained mostly silent since Moscow launched what it calls a “special military operation” on February 24.
“I don’t see ANY beneficiary of this crazy war! Innocent people and soldiers are dying,” he wrote in the post, dated April 19, which had almost 120,000 likes less than a day later.
Tinkov’s comments come after Russian forces, which were largely bogged down in much of the country, retreated and redeployed in the east and south, mostly along the Black Sea coast.
During their invasion, Russian forces have been accused by Human Rights Watch and many others of committing war crimes and atrocities in occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions.
The invasion also has forced more than 5 million Ukrainians to flee the country.
Tinkov, a financier worth $3.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, is one of the few oligarchs so far to have expressed concerns over Moscow’s invasion, even as he and dozens of others have been hit with sanctions from the West aimed at putting pressure on the Kremlin and those around Putin.
Last month, tycoon Oleg Deripaska, known for his close ties with Putin, said on Twitter that the war in Ukraine must be stopped as soon as possible.
But Tinkov’s criticism runs far deeper.
“The generals are waking up with a hangover and realizing that they had a shitty army,” Tinkov wrote, adding that with rampant nepotism making “everything else in the country shit,” the state of the army shouldn’t be a surprise.
“Kremlin officials are shocked that not only they, but also their children, will not go to the Mediterranean in the summer. Businessmen are trying to save the rest of their property,” he added.
Tinkov also took aim at those “morons” using the symbol Z — used by Russian armed forces to mark their vehicles and equipment — as they represent only 10 percent of the country and that the other 90 percent of Russians “are AGAINST this war!”
“Dear ‘collective West,’ please give Mr. Putin a clear exit to save his face and stop this massacre,” he wrote at the end of the text.
