Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday issued new advice to Russia’s billionaires and financial elite, urging them to invest in new technology, manufacturing capacity and business to help Moscow overcome “Western attempts to destroy the economy,” Reuters reported.

Putin also said that Russia has so far defied these attempts and that Western firms that have decided to stay in Russia have made a wise choice.

He said this during a speech at the congress of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Russia, and his participation in the event was the first personal meeting with some of the country’s richest people since the launch of the “special military operation” on February 24 last year.

Putin also told Russian billionaires that he had no choice to invade Ukraine, as many of them fell under Western sanctions after the war began.

Among those present were oligarchs Oleg Deripaska, Volodymyr Potanin, Oleksiy Mordasov, Andriy Melnychenko and Dmytro Mazepin.

Putin also told them that Russia faced a “sanctions war” but was quickly reorienting its economy toward countries that did not punish Moscow. The head of the Kremlin thanked those present for their work for the benefit of the Russian state.

Putin’s advice to oligarchs who lost their yachts

In September of last year, the Russian president gave another series of advice to the country’s wealthy on the subject of assets confiscated from them in the West.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said Russian businessmen would not lose their accounts and yachts if they kept them in Russia and not abroad.

“It would be better if these ships were kept here and the money was invested not in foreign assets, but in the development of Russian infrastructure,” he advised, adding that “the current situation is a lesson for everyone.”

Addressing the West, the head of the Kremlin also said that many Russian businessmen “didn’t keep anything special over there,” and it turned out that they were right.

“Today, the business community as a whole demonstrates the highest responsibility to the country,” he emphasized.

Last year’s event was attended mainly by businessmen and local officials, which did not have the same scale as the conference organized now in Moscow, where they presented themselves among the most famous Russian oligarchs.

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