How to call a multimillionaire who made his fortune in Russia in defense and oil in the 1990s? “I am not an oligarch”, immediately cuts off Alexander Temerko. In these times of all-out sanctions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 55-year-old man wants to make a difference. He may be extremely wealthy, a very generous donor to the Conservative Party – he has donated personally or through his companies more than 1.6 million pounds sterling, or nearly 2 million euros, since 2012 –, but he claims to have nothing to do with the clique close to Vladimir Putin.
“Putin’s oligarchs are not entrepreneurs, not people à la Elon Musk, who create value thanks to their talent, but lazy people, leeches who take money from the state budget or public markets “, insists Mr. Temerko, in a passionate tone with a strong Russian accent. As for those who worry about his influence with the British government – he funded 21 MPs – he replies hand on heart “You can’t buy influence in the UK. It is a civilized country. But I am a political activist. »
Elusive Mr. Temerko, who evades questions and speaks of himself in the first person plural. In the luxurious Pall Mall building which serves as his office, in the heart of London’s political district – Downing Street is just a stone’s throw away – the businessman wants to set things straight. Military map of Ukraine in front of him, large file open on the “Tracking sanctions against Russia” page, he recalls being born in Ukraine, “in the Zaporizhia region”. “Then we moved with my parents to the Donbass, which is today the region most affected militarily. My school was destroyed. »
“Paranoid idea”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? “It is an outrageous and baseless aggression by Putin, who has the paranoid idea of restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union. » He calls for a ban on overflights of Ukrainian territory. If he denies it, Mr. Temerko is a pure product of far-west Russia of the 1990s: anti-communist, pro-business, ultra-liberal. “My first fight was against the Communist Party, then against Putin”, assures the man, trucker sweater under his perfectly cut suit, sporting a pin in the colors of Ukraine. A graduate of a Moscow technical university, the Moscow Institute of Electronic Equipment, he made his fortune in the bosom of the team of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president of the 1990s, of which he became a prominent member. “Yeltsin was a leader, as soon as there was a new idea, he made a decision, good or bad, whether he was fasting or not. »
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