As Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine last week, Vladimir Putin gathered the country’s top businessmen in the Kremlin’s ornate Hall of the Order of St Catherine to discuss their response to the economic shocks that would follow.
The Russian president, sat about 20ft away in a conspicuous social-distancing measure, told them he had “no other choice” but to invade Ukraine — and, if they wanted to keep their businesses, neither did they, according to people briefed on the meeting.
“It was a pointless meeting. The main idea was to explain himself. The explanation was: ‘I get it, but I didn’t have any other way out. That’s really what he thinks,” one of them said.
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