Former owner of the Saxo Bank and Tinkoff cycling teams and founder of the online bank of the same name, the ebullient billionaire Oleg Tinkov, who had sharply criticized the offensive in Ukraine, was labeled a “foreign agent” on Friday by the Russian authorities.
Hundreds of people, human rights activists, opponents or independent journalists, have been classified in recent years as "foreign agents", which is accompanied by strict administrative constraints and the obligation to appear as such in any public communication.
According to the Russian Ministry of Justice, Oleg Tinkov, who lives abroad, “spread false information” about Kremlin policy and the conflict in Ukraine.
Oleg Tinkov renounced his Russian nationality in 2022, Oleg Tinkov renounced his Russian nationality in 2022 and posted it on social networks, saying he did not want “to be associated with a fascist country which started a war with its neighbor peaceful and which kills innocent people every day.
He said he hoped other businessmen would follow his example to "weaken (Vladimir) Putin's regime and its economy and ultimately bring it to failure."
He also virulently criticized the “absurd” Russian offensive in Ukraine by a “shit army”, calling on Westerners to help put an end to this “massacre”.
It was one of the strongest positions taken by a Russian businessman at the time.
Oleg Tinkov claimed in 2020 that Tinkoff was Russia's third-largest retail bank behind state-owned giants Sberbank and VTB.
He was “excluded” from his own bank in March 2022.