A few weeks ago, Igor Volobuev was vice-president of one of the most prestigious banks in the country: Gazprombank, the financial branch of the energy giant Gazprom and close to the Kremlin. But Igor Volobuev resigned. On March 2, he left Russia. Not just to flee, but to engage: now based in kyiv, he says he wants to fight alongside the territorial defense forces.
Because he was born Ukrainian, in Akhtyrka, in the northeast of the country, where he spent the first 18 years of his life. “I couldn’t sit idly by while Russia devastated my motherland“, he said. “The Russians killed my acquaintances, my close friends. People I knew from childhood told me they were ashamed of me” he testifies in front of the camera.
Russia: Igor Volobuev, vice president of state bank Gazprombank, said he fled Russia to fight alongside forces in Ukraine, becoming at least the 4th known senior leader or official to leave the country of abrupt way.https://t.co/wgccIHElUc pic.twitter.com/961gXPC535
— Rebecca Rambar (@RebeccaRambar) April 27, 2022
“My return is an act of repentance. I want to wash away my Russian past“.”I will stay in Ukraine until victory“. These heavy words, the senior leader entrusted them this Tuesday, April 26 to two independent media: a Ukrainian site, leagueand a Russian investigation platform, the Insiderwho now works from abroad.
Igor Volobuev is not the first senior Russian leader or official to defect. Three names have already circulated: Lev Khasis, from the board of directors of Sberbank, Anatoli Chubais, special official in the Kremlin, and Andrey Panov, deputy general manager of Aeroflot, the largest Russian airline. All three abruptly left their posts and Russia. Without saying why, but carefully avoiding criticizing the Kremlin even from abroad. “The life before, it’s over“, simply posted on Facebook the director of Aeroflot on March 12.
Overall, not many senior leaders and oligarchs have openly expressed their opposition to the war in Ukraine. We remember the very harsh words of Vladimir Putin calling them “traitors” and of “5th column of the west“.
Igor Volobuev is a little more talkative. He also evokes the wave of suicides which for several weeks has affected the oligarchs, in Russia and abroad. In particular the death of one of his colleagues, the first vice-president of Gazprombank, Vladislav Avaev, found dead by bullets ten days ago, in his apartment in Moscow, with his wife and daughter. And also that of Sergey Protosenya, former director of the Russian energy giant Novatek, the next day, in Spain, again with his wife and daughter.
Вице-президент Газпромбанка Игорь Волобуев, который уехал из Москвы и вступил в ряды теробороны в Киеве, не верит в самоубийство своего коллеги – первого вице-президента Газпромбанка Владислава Аваева. pic.twitter.com/DT8zjcEdil
— The Insider (@the_ins_ru) April 26, 2022
He did not know either of them personally, he has no proof but an intimate conviction: “I don’t think these are suicides.“, he affirms. And without shuddering, with his face uncovered in front of the camera, he judges that the death of Avaev “might have been staged because maybe he knew too much“. Courageous words. Volobuev obviously decided to fight against the Kremlin with words as much as with weapons.