Two Russian billionaires decline invitation to meet with Putin Thursday, December 27, 2018 10:00:24 AM

Two Russian billionaires were unable to go to the Kremlin to take part in President Vladimir Putin’s annual meeting with the country’s top businessmen.

Petr Aven, head of Alfa-Bank’s board of directors with an estimated $5.1 billion according to Forbes, and Yandex co-owner and CEO Arkady Volozh ($1.5 billion) declined to attend the meeting which took place on Wednesday, December 26.

“I’m just not in Moscow, I am very far from Moscow. There is no special reason,” Aven told TASS.

A source close to Yandex reported that Volozh had been invited to the meeting, but was unable to attend for the same reason – he was out of town.

The meeting’s guest list has grown in number and been updated: last year it was attended by 55 leaders of major companies and business associations. This time, 59 of the country’s most influential businessmen gathered in the Kremlin’s Catherine Hall.

Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelyev and Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov also did not attend.

A number of people who were not present last year were invited to meet with the president this year, including Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Rusnano chairman Anatoly Chubais, Russneft chairman Mikhail Gutseriyev, Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov, SIBUR chairman Dmitry Konov, and Infowatch president Natalya Kaspersky. The heads of several other companies were also on the list: FGC UES (Andrei Murov), Rusagro (Vadim Moshkovich), Rostelecom (Mikhail Oseevsky) and others.

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