Malta golden passport billionaire Boris Mints says West must not fear Putin

A Russian billionaire who acquired a Maltese ‘golden passport’ under the formerly-named Individual Investor Programme, has dubbed Russian president Vladimir Putin “a modern-day Adolf Hitler”.

Speaking to the Sunday Mail via a translator, Mints, who does not live in Malta but a Scots castle, said the West must stop being afraid of Putin, describing the Ukraine as “the most tragic event of the 21st century, tantamount to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939.”

Previously seen as a key Putin ally, Mints said the West had to stop being afraid of Russia. “If we fail to act, we will be outside observers of demonstrations of lawlessness, the death of innocent people and accordingly, to some extent, accomplices in this.

“The history of World War II showed the tragic consequences that a war has for both the countries involved at the start as well as those that initially tried to maintain the status of outside observers. Today, the same fate awaits us, if we act as mere observers.”

Mints and his family live in exile and split their time between London and his baronial castle in Perthshire, the Tower of Lethendy in Meikleour, a 39-acre estate with its own golf course. The property had been at the centre of a legal bid by Putin’s regime to claw back interests linked to Mints.

“In my view, this is a demonstration of impunity – in this case expressed in the most aggressive form... If it is possible to annex Crimea without punishment, by that logic the same can happen to the whole of Ukraine and so on.”

Mints is fighting extradition to his homeland after fleeing to the UK in 2018 over embezzlement charges in Russia. Interpol has rejected Russia’s application to issue an international arrest warrant for the billionaire and two of his sons.

In 2018, he was one of 210 prominent Russians put on the “Putin list” by the US Treasury department, but his relations with the Russian regime are understood to have soured.

“Sensible Russians are categorically against the invasion of Ukraine and there is much evidence that they are in the majority,” Mints told the Sunday Mail. “It is impossible not to recognise that the number of people with opposing viewpoints isn’t small. As Adolf Hitler famously said, ‘The more monstrous the lie, the more readily they believe in it.’ Unfortunately, this formula is working impeccably in Russia 80 years later.”

Mints is founder of the Cyprus-based O1 Group and is reportedly among a group of super-rich Russians who can travel freely within the European Union thanks to their Maltese passports.