He is alleged to have paid bribes and formed a criminal organization, according to the warrant, issued after an FBI investigation that began in 2006, the ministry said.
One Russian billionaire, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said he was concerned about the effect potential sanctions might have on business. He said he’d consider buying assets outside of Russia if sanctions were imposed.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said in a March 11 telephone interview that “there were no consultations” with Russian businessmen and that they “have not expressed any concern” over the situation.
According to a March 13 report in the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that business leaders in Russia have been in “constant contact,” and that Putin had not met with any of them. The report said a recent meeting between the country’s industrialists and high- ranking government officials turned “tense” when the subject of sanctions came up.
Broken Sanctions
Doing business under sanctions might not be all bad for Russian entrepreneurs, according to South African billionaire Natie Kirsh.
“There are opportunities that come out of sanctions,” the 82-year-old, who started building his $5.9 billion retail and real estate empire during apartheid, said by phone from Johannesburg. “Sanctions can be broken. It always depends on the extent of the sanctions and how they take.”
F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last president during the apartheid era, said the country and businessmen were able to work around the sanctions levied by the U.S. beginning in 1986.
“The sanctions delayed change in South Africa because it made us look for ways to evade them,” de Klerk, 77, said in a telephone interview from Cape Town. “We worked with the business community to find ways to keep companies going. In the end, not many factories shut down, they just changed ownership.”
Ukraine’s Richest