Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a closed meeting with leading businessmen, proposed that they voluntarily contribute funds to the budget to finance the war with Ukraine, according to the Financial Times and The Bell.

The publications claim that the initiative came from Rosneft President Igor Sechin, while billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, a member of the Federation Council from Dagestan, allegedly promised 100 billion rubles. The Financial Times reports that Oleg Deripaska also responded to the request.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov denied this information, calling it unreliable. According to him, Putin did not approach the businessmen with such a request, but rather one of the meeting participants "on his own initiative" announced his willingness to allocate "a very large sum."

"One of the meeting participants did indeed say that he considered the state to need to allocate a certain large, very large sum of money—and that it was his family decision," Peskov commented.

The day before the RSPP congress, Vladimir Putin held a closed meeting with leading business leaders. It was stated at the meeting that Russia plans to continue military operations until it controls all of Donbas.