Billionaire Oleg Deripaska decided instead of the Davos forum to go to Baikal. There he, in his own words, plans to fish. This businessman reported in his account on Instagram.
“Instead of Davos, I went to Lake Baikal. To go fishing, ”he wrote. At the same time, another co-owner of UC Rusal, Viktor Vekselberg, will come to the forum, his representative told Forbes.
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, starts its work tomorrow, January 22. The theme of the forum is “Globalization 4.0: the formation of a global architecture in the era of the fourth industrial revolution”. This year more than 3000 participants from 110 countries will take part in it.
Whether Deripaska, the owner of Renova Viktor Vekselberg and the head of VTB Andrei Kostin will be among them, was not clear. All three in April 2018 came under new US sanctions. In November, it became known that the forum organizers no longer want to see them at their event. According to sources from the Financial Times, the reason for this decision was pressure from the US authorities. Then Deripaska did not comment on this, but a person close to the businessman told TASS that he did not intend to go to Davos: "He left the business, participation in the forum does not make sense."
In response, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia could completely refuse to participate in the World Economic Forum if its organizers did not reconsider this decision.
In mid-December, the forum organizers changed their mind. They reported that, subject to certain conditions, all citizens of Russia can visit the forum. In Moscow, this decision was welcomed. According to a source from RBC, the forum representatives were convinced of the need to give businessmen the opportunity to visit the January forum, Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin. The minister then announced that Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg and Andrei Kostin are going to attend the event. Deripaska also joined the Russian delegation, and he was listed on the forum’s program as chairman of the Volnoe Delo charitable foundation.