dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

By RYAN HEATH

03/08/2022 06:51 PM EST

Updated: 03/08/2022 07:50 PM EST

The champagne and caviar days in Davos are over. Or at least the caviar.

The World Economic Forum has put on ice its relationships with Russia, including strategic partnerships with conglomerates run by oligarchs. A Kremlin-backed research center in Moscow and an advisory council led by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic adviser have also been torpedoed.

“We are not engaging with any sanctioned individual and have frozen all relations with Russian entities,” Amanda Russo, a WEF spokesperson, told POLITICO.

Frozen perhaps, but not dead: WEF is leaving open the possibility of serving as a bridge-builder between Russia and Ukraine once active conflict is over.

The 800-pound gorilla of the elite global conference circuit has walked a tightrope for decades when it comes to Russia: basking in the Kremlin’s attention while cringing over oligarch antics.

The Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, prides himself on making his annual meeting in Davos open to all comers, including via a personal relationship with Putin dating back to the early 1990s.

Putin and his predecessor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, have addressed WEF five times from 2007 to 2021. Putin was even invited to speak in January 2015, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Crimea, but he turned down the invitation.

Introducing Putin to a virtual Davos gathering in January 2021, Schwab called Putin’s voice “essential” in world affairs, echoing a comment from 2009 that he could not think of a single issue of global importance that could be solved without Russia’s involvement. The pair last met in mid-2021, when Schwab told Putin of the “particular importance” he attaches to Russian representatives taking part in Davos events.

Schwab, via a spokesperson, chose not to directly comment on his relationship with Putin.

But the tides have turned. Not only is sucking up to Putin suddenly déclassé, but WEF is now forced to comply with U.S., EU and Swiss sanctions against Russia, which not only means cutting ties with Russian banks and oil companies — but juggling the sensitivities of the Belgium-based SWIFT international finance transfer system (a WEF six-figure “partner”), from which Russian entities are now banned.

SWIFT did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The dancing bears

Even before Putin’s presidency, Davos loomed large in the minds of Russian elites. An invitation to WEF was the ultimate stamp of global legitimacy for post-Soviet business leaders — and a chance to throw their weight and euros around.

The star turn of Gennady Zyuganov, the head of Russia’s Communist Party, at the 1996 WEF annual meeting, prompted Russian business leaders including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky to form the “Davos Pact” — a plan to finance the presidential campaign of Boris Yeltsin, then polling in single digits, to prevent Communists returning to power.

Throughout the ‘90s, Russians partied hard in Davos, and the Russian delegation ballooned. By the time Putin and Medvedev began to speak on stage, it was common to find a dozen or more billionaire oligarchs in Davos.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/davos-putin-russian-oligarchs-00015344

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part 2

Whether they will be missed is an open question, but the absence of Russians from Europe’s highest altitude town will certainly be noticed.

Oligarch parties in Davos were legendary and notorious.

In 2008, Olympic champion figure skaters performed under fireworks. By 2016, mining magnate Oleg Deripaska was importing costumed Cossack dancers to perform for his guests, as models dressed as flight attendants toured a chalet with massive bowls of black caviar: spoonfed to guests via a spatula, followed with vodka chasers.

Guests at Deripaska’s parties ranged from American CEOs to members of Britain’s House of Lords. Throngs of young women lacking Davos accreditation badges — the universal status system of the town during WEF meetings — mixed among the crowd, claiming to be translators.

By 2018, Deripaska’s partying had drawn the ire of locals, and his parties moved from residential zones and into public venues. He responded by putting on a concert by Enrique Iglesias.

In between the late night parties, the focal point for Russian activities was Russia House — an initiative of the Roscongress Foundation — which took a prominent position on the Davos Promenade.

More than 2,000 participants from 85 countries joined events at the venue in 2020, including billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio and a disgraced former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General, Fabrizio Hochschild.

First Covid, then Kyiv

This has already been a crunch year for WEF, with the pandemic forcing the organization into something of a crisis moment.

WEF has relied on its Strategic Partners, which pay upwards of $640,000 to join the Forum’s most elite partnership tier. That grouping includes a number of Russian banks, which have helped to account for some of the 70 percent of its $340 million budget in 2021. But its inability to collect fees for holding in-person events, such as its annual meeting in Davos, blew a $45 million hole in its budget.

With Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swiss-headquartered Forum will need to eat an even larger check: the Forum’s elimination of links to its Russian stakeholders has been total.

At least six Davos regulars are now subject to personal or organizational sanctions from Western governments.

Herman Gref — chief executive officer of Sberbank, which has been sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and Canada — is no longer listed as a member of WEF’s board of trustees.

Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister of Canada, sits on WEF’s board and led the push to eject Russian banks from SWIFT. A spokesperson for Freeland told POLITICO: “Canada will continue to work in lockstep with our partners to sanction President Putin and his hangers-on for their unprovoked and barbaric invasion of Ukraine,” adding “we encourage international organizations to do everything they can to support these efforts.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/davos-putin-russian-oligarchs-00015344