Russian President Vladimir Putin should be hanged for invading Ukraine, Russian gas executive Igor Volobuyev told The Telegraph after fleeing the country.
"Putin has to be put on trial and hanged," said Volobuyev, who was vice president for Russia's Gazprom. "But only in accordance with the law."
Volobuyev, who was born in Ukraine, watched the invasion unfold on his phone, telling the newspaper that "I was glued to my phone. I felt like I was sitting in a cozy cinema watching a horror film."
He added that "it’s such a miserable feeling when people call you and say, 'Russians are killing us. You work in Gazprombank. You’re an important guy. Can you do something to stop this?'"
Volobuyev surfaced in Kyiv last week, saying he fled Russia to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers.
"I couldn’t watch from the sidelines what Russia was doing to my homeland," Volobuyev said. "The Russians were killing my father, my acquaintances and close friends. My father lived in a cold basement for a month. People I had known since childhood told me they were ashamed of me."
After spending two decades at state-owned Gazprom and rising in the ranks, Volobuyev told The Telegraph that "I couldn’t live like this much longer. I had to choose between my family and my motherland, and I chose my motherland."
The Mirror reported that Volobuyev was dissuaded from attempting to get into Ukraine on foot and entered the country through other means that he won't disclose. He has no citizenship, his bank account has been emptied as "payback" for his betrayal to Russia, and the army in Kyiv rejected his attempts to join.
Volobuyev insisted that he is not the only Russian tycoon unhappy with the war, saying, "I know people whose views are very different from what they say publicly on their job."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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