Billionaire Russian oligarch says he doesn’t know how to live 3 weeks after being hit with sanctions

• Mikhail Fridman said he doesn’t know how to live after being hit by sanctions, per Bloomberg.
• Fridman told Bloomberg he has an allowance of $3,300 a month and needs UK government permission to spend money.
• Fridman thought he had a good relationship with the West and “couldn’t be punished,” he said.

Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman said in an interview he doesn’t know how to live, three weeks after coming under sanctions, Bloomberg reported.

Fridman, who currently has a net worth of $10.1 billion according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, was sanctioned by the European Union on February 28 and the UK on March 15.

He described the EU’s sanctions “groundless and unfair”at the time, and said he would contest them, according to Reuters. 

Since the invasion of Ukraine began, Fridman’s wealth has dropped by $4 billion, per Bloomberg.

“I don’t know how to live,” Fridman told Bloomberg. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Fridman, cofounder of London investment firm LetterOne and ex-board member of Russian banking company Alfa-Bank, told Bloomberg that the sanctions meant his last working UK bank card was frozen. 

Currently living in the UK, he has an allowance of £2,500 ($3,300) per month and has to apply for a license to spend money before the British government decides how reasonable the request is, Fridman told Bloomberg. 

“My problems are really nothing compared with their problems,” he told Bloomberg, referring to Ukrainians trapped in the conflict.

Fridman resigned from the board of Alfa-Bank one day after the EU sanctioned him. He also stepped down from the board of directors of LetterOne, the investment firm he cofounded.

Fridman said he thought had a good relationship with the West due to his trips to Washington and an Alfa-Bank fellowship program he set up for American, British, and German citizens in 2004.

“We sincerely believed we are such good friends of the Western world that we couldn’t be punished,” he told Bloomberg.

Fridman is among the many Russians targeted by Western sanctions aimed at crippling Russia’s economy and punishing President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.