Branson asked to lift British sanctions on Tinkov

Tinkov came under British sanctions in March last year and considered them "unfair" in his attitude. Branson also said that the restrictions against Tinkov are a mistake. His letter was attached to an appeal to the British Foreign Office Richard Branson

Billionaire Richard Branson (worth, according to FORBES , $ 3.1 billion) appealed to the British authorities with a request to lift sanctions against Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov, writes The Times.

Branson wrote a letter, which was attached to the appeal to the British Foreign Office. The founder of the Virgin group of companies said that the restrictions against Tinkov were “unreasonable” and that he was on the sanctions list by mistake.

“Although he was a wealthy Russian businessman, he was never an oligarch. I have always known him as a dynamic, self-made entrepreneur. That's why I liked him and supported him and continue to do so," Branson wrote.

As the publication points out, Tinkov and Branson met several times both in RUSSIA and abroad. This first happened when a Russian entrepreneur asked Branson for advice on starting his own bank (Tinkoff Bank was founded in 2006).

In support of the removal of restrictions against Tinkov, opposition leader and ex-head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky (recognized as a foreign agent), who left Russia, also spoke earlier.

Tinkov, who suffers from leukemia, has lived and received treatment in Britain in recent years. Now, the tabloid writes, he lives in Europe (the country is not specified). According to the ex-banker, the sanctions interfered with the process of his treatment.

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Tinkov fell under British sanctions, implying a ban on entry and freezing of assets, a month after the start of a special operation in Ukraine . He ended up on the same list as the HEAD of Sberbank German Gref. Shortly before this, Tinkov spoke out against the outbreak of hostilities.

Soon the businessman sold his 35% stake in Tinkoff Bank, which he founded; The buyer was Vladimir Potanin's Interros. The details of the deal were not disclosed. Tinkov said that he was forced to sell bank shares because of his position on the special operation. The businessman also claimed that Potanin paid him no more than 3% of the real value of the stake in Tinkoff.

Last October, Tinkov announced that he intended to renounce his Russian citizenship, but the post disappeared from his Instagram account the next day (Meta, the owner of the social network, is recognized as extremist in Russia and banned).

Last March, it became known that Tinkov appealed to the British authorities with a request to remove restrictions from him. The businessman called the introduction of sanctions against himself a mistake, but he considered them deserved against the majority of Russian entrepreneurs.