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Now Lebedev turns on Putin

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Looks like this war isn’t going terribly well for Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator now finds himself something of an international pariah, with barely half-a-dozen countries lining up behind him. By contrast, the charmless Kremlin autocrat seems to have done what no-one thought possible: unite Europe in opposition, drag Germany from its Ostpolitik slumber and even force neutral Sweden to dispatch thousands of missile launchers to his foes. Well done Vlad.

It’s not just in the international arena where Putin finds himself unloved: there’s clearly cracks in the previously unshakeable support which he enjoyed from the plutocratic oligarchs his regime has helped enrich. First, Mikhail Fridman, one of the country’s richest men, said yesterday that the war in Ukraine was a ‘tragedy’ and called on the ‘bloodshed’ to end, in a letter sent to staff at his London-based private equity firm LetterOne.

And today, another millionaire mogul has attacked Putin publicly. Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia, the son of a KGB officer, has today broken ranks and criticised Putin’s war on the front page of his newspaper. The Evening Standard, which Lebedev has owned since 2009, carries a front page appeal from the bearded businessmen and cross-bench peer.  In a statement published alongside a photograph of a paramedic performing CPR on a girl injured by shelling, he said: 

On this page are the final minutes of a six-year-old child fatally injured by shells that struck her Mariupol apartment block on Sunday…. Other children, and other families, are suffering similar fates across Ukraine. As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters. As a British citizen I ask you to save Europe from war. As a Russian patriot I plead that you prevent any more young Russian soldiers from dying needlessly. As a citizen of the world I ask you to save the world from annihilation.

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Lebedev’s father once worked as a spy at the Soviet embassy in London but then built a fortune by trading securities in the chaos that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The fact his son is now willing to go public with his criticisms highlights the anger and fear among Putin’s oligarchs about the consequences of his Ukrainian adventure.

Ironically, as a British peer who boasts a foreign country in his title, Lebedev Jr. had to ask the Kremlin for permission for use of ‘Siberia’ when he accepted his peerage. Mr S wonders whether Putin and his remaining allies would be so obliging now…

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