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Branch of Gazprombank in Moscow
Photo: MAXIM SHEMETOV / REUTERS
Public criticism of the attack on Ukraine is severely punished in Russia - the Putin regime does not tolerate even the slightest dissent and brutally cracks down on critics.
It is all the more remarkable what a longtime top manager at Gazprombank has now done and explained in a video interview.
"I want to cleanse myself of my Russian past," said Igor Volobuyev in the interview, which has already been viewed more than 200,000 times.
He left Russia on March 2nd.
Volobuyev justified his flight by saying that he himself was born in the Ukraine, that he condemned Russia's war of aggression and that he wanted to "defend my homeland with weapons in his hands".
Russian-language media also reported on the manager's escape.
In the interview, he also criticized his former employer Gazprom, whom he described as Russia's "gas stick".
Moscow has always tried to blackmail its neighbors and Europe with the gas.
The Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream pipeline projects have always had the politically motivated goal of eliminating Ukraine as a transit country for Russian gas, Volobuyev said.
The Kremlin and Gazprom have always rejected such allegations, stressing that the projects are purely economic.
According to Volobuyev, he worked for six years as deputy head of Gazprombank, a subsidiary of the energy giant Gazprom.
Before that, he worked as a PR manager at Gazprom for 16 years.
In the interview he also commented on a series of alleged suicides by top managers of Russian energy companies.
According to Volobuyev, he doubted that they would have taken their own lives.
Vladislav Avayev, former vice president of Gazprombank, was found dead in a Moscow apartment, along with his wife and 13-year-old daughters.
According to official Russian information, it is an extended suicide.
"I don't think he was capable of killing his family," Volobuyev said now.
The thing was staged.
"For what?
That is hard to say.
He might know something.
He might pose a threat," Volobuyev told Russia's investigative portal The Insider.
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