This “proposal” was made at a closed meeting with major businessmen after the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
According to the interlocutors, the continuation of hostilities and their financing were discussed at the meeting. One of the publication’s sources paraphrased Putin’s position with the words “we will fight,” another noted that it was about the intention to “go to the borders of Donbass.”
Sources claim that the idea of raising funds from business could have come from the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, who proposed an appropriate mechanism, including the placement of federal loan war bonds.
Some meeting participants, according to the publication, agreed to support the initiative. In particular, businessman Suleiman Kerimov allegedly promised to contribute 100 billion rubles.
However, the total amount of funds that could be discussed is not indicated.
At the same time, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, commenting publicly on the results of the meeting, did not mention the discussion of war financing. According to him, they discussed the regulation of artificial intelligence, the platform economy and the protection of business rights, as well as the situation in the Middle East.
The contents of the closed meeting are not officially disclosed, and the list of its participants has been kept secret since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Context
As of December 2025, Russia has spent about 42.343 trillion rubles, or approximately $542 billion, on the war with Ukraine since the beginning of 2022, The Moscow Times reported.
