Davos made the hardest ever decision to lift the ban on Russian oligarchs trio, the richest of them is Oleg Deripaska, FT reported. Despite Viktor Vekselberg, Andrei Kostin and Oleg Deripaska are subject to the US sanctions are being allowed to go after all to the most important business forum.
Davos bows to Kremlin pressure to lift a ban on Russian oligarchs from the US black-list. All three moguls had been prominent members of Russia’s business delegation in recent years but next year, they should be banned from attending Davos. Kremlin responded immediately and even had threatened to completely boycott the business event. “If so, nobody will go there,” Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the time.
In fact, the initial ban on Russian business trio has undermined attempts by the forum to get the Russian president to attend. Vladimir Putin has not visited Davos since 2009, so, it is time to make the right decision. Thanks to the negotiations between the Russian government officials, Swiss counterparts and representatives of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in search of a compromise, the exclusion was reported on Monday.
According to the international business experts, Viktor Vekselberg, Andrei Kostin and Oleg Deripaska were hit by US sanctions in April that banned them from doing business with US citizens and froze their US assets. Despite that fact, they are not banned from entering Switzerland.
After Davos U-turn, Moscow welcomes the invitation of Russian businessman to the WEF.