$1M Bounty Placed On Putin’s Head

Alex Konanykhin, a Russian businessman is offering $1 million to any military officer who apprehends Russian President Vladimir Putin “dead or alive” for committing war crimes in his invasion of Ukraine.

Alex Konanykhin, an entrepreneur and former banker, posted the offer on social media and said that Putin must be caught for committing war crimes in his invasion of Ukraine.

However, Konanykhin has since deleted the post and has denied making any offer to assassinate the Russian President, adding that reports suggesting he placed a bounty were ‘not correct’.

“I promise to pay $1,000,000 to the officer(s) who, complying with their constitutional duty, arrest(s) Putin as a war criminal under Russian and international laws,” Alex Konanykhinin had said in a Facebook post.

Konanykhin claimed that Putin had violated the Russian constitution by “eliminating free elections” and “murdering his opponents.”

“As an ethnic Russian and a Russia citizen, I see it as my moral duty to facilitate the denazification of Russia. I will continue my assistance to Ukraine in its heroic efforts to withstand the onslaught of Putin’s Orda,” Konanykhin said, using the Russian word for “horde.”

An earlier version of Konanykhin’s post on LinkedIn included a photo of Putin with the words “Wanted: Dead or alive. Vladimir Putin for mass murder.” But the post appears to have been taken down.

Earlier in the invasion, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian military forces marked him and his family as top targets during a televised address last week.

“The enemy marked me as target number one, and my family as target number two,” Zelensky said last week.

Konanykhin had started more than 100 companies by the age of 25, following the fall of communism in Russia, according to a 1996 article in The Washington Post.

According to his website, Konanykhin is currently based in New York City and is the CEO of TransparentBusiness, a digital work platform.