Broke Oligarch Says Sanctioned Billionaires Have No Sway Over Putin

When I first called Mikhail Fridman to ask if he would talk about what it’s like to be sanctioned, he all but hung up on me. A couple of days later, he said he still didn’t think it was a good idea. After further back and forth he finally agreed, proposing we meet at a hotel in London’s Mayfair district. I countered with his home, Athlone House, a Victorian estate he bought in 2016 for £65 million ($85 million at the current exchange rate). He didn’t like that, which is how we ended up at a cafe in North London, speaking for almost two hours against the constant sound of an espresso machine grinding in the background.

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