Mikhail Fridman, the Russian billionaire who controls the DIA group that owns the Minipreço supermarket in Portugal, was approved by the European Union (EU) this Monday. This Tuesday, he was added to Brussels’ “black list” and competed.
Yesterday, Friedman, one of the controlling shareholders of Alpha Group, which owns Russia’s largest private bank, Alpha Bank, and X5 Retail Group, the nation’s largest food retailer, vowed to challenge the ban, saying it was “unreasonable”. Action taken by Brussels.
At the conference presenting the annual results of the DIA panel, Fridman called the situation in Ukraine “a great tragedy” and called for an “end to the war.”
Born in 1964 in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, Friedman and his longtime ally, Pyotr Aven, were placed on the embargo barrier to the invasion of Ukraine.
Brussels Aven considers Vladimir Putin to be “one of the closest oligarchs”, and Friedman is described as “one of Putin’s inner circle financiers and aides.”
Aven denied that “Rosneft’s CEO was a particularly close personal friend of Igor Sechin”, while Fridman promised that “developing strong ties” with Putin’s administration was wrong.
The two millionaires denied “any financial or political relationship with President Putin or the Kremlin.”
Friedman said he did not know if he would be subject to sanctions by the United Kingdom and the United States. “I hope not,” he said.