Ex-Russian banking billionaire says Instagram post condemning Ukraine war cost him $9 billion

Oleg Tinkov said that within a day of posting his criticism on Instagram, senior executives at his bank received a call from Kremlin‑linked officials with an ultimatum: either his stake must be sold and his name removed from the brand. (File photo)

A former Russian banking billionaire has claimed that a single Instagram post condemning the war in Ukraine wiped out almost his entire fortune, costing him nearly $9 billion after he was forced to sell his stake in Tinkoff Bank for a fraction of its true value. Speaking to the BBC, Oleg Tinkov also claimed that 90 percent of Russians opposed the invasion, dismissing the remaining 10 percent who supported it as “morons.”

Once celebrated as one of Russia’s most successful bankers, Tinkov publicly denounced the invasion in April 2022, calling the war “insane” and criticising the Russian military as corrupt and unprepared.

A sudden ultimatum

Explaining how he lost a major chunk of his wealth, Tinkov told the publication that within a day of posting his criticism, senior executives at his bank received a call from Kremlin‑linked officials with an ultimatum: either his stake must be sold and his name removed from the brand, or the bank—then one of Russia’s biggest lenders—would be nationalised.

He said what followed was not a negotiation but coercion. Officials told him he had no choice but to accept whatever price was offered for his roughly 35 percent stake in TCS Group, the bank’s parent company. “I couldn’t negotiate the price. I was like a hostage,” Tinkov later said.

Forced sale at 3 percent of market value

Within a week, a company tied to metals magnate Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s richest men and a supplier of nickel used in military production, stepped in to buy Tinkov’s stake. Tinkov said the deal valued his holding at just 3 percent of its actual market worth, wiping out nearly $9 billion he had accumulated over decades of work.

Exile and erasure

After the sale, Tinkov left Russia and eventually renounced his citizenship. He claims the pressure extended beyond the forced transaction, alleging attempts to remove his name from the bank’s branding and erase his contributions to the institution’s rise.

He says the episode shows how swiftly and ruthlessly loyalty is enforced when oligarchs publicly oppose the Kremlin—echoing the fate of other dissenting tycoons such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was jailed for a decade after challenging state power.

Now in exile, Tinkov has slowly re‑entered public life in 2025, emerging as a backer of Plata, a Mexican fintech started by former Tinkoff Bank executives.