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A Russian businessman has put a US$1 million bounty on Vladimir Putin’s head.
Entrepreneur Alex Konanykhin also urged the country’s military officers to bring the Russian president to justice.
Konanykhin put up the offer on LinkedIn and Facebook.
He called it his “moral duty”, following the attack on Ukraine.
Konanykhin wrote: “I promise to pay $1,000,000 to the officer who, complying with their constitutional duty, arrest Putin as a war criminal under Russian and international laws.”
“Putin is not the Russian president as he came to power as the result of a special operation of blowing up apartment buildings in Russia, then violated the Constitution by eliminating free elections and murdering his opponents.”
Konanykhin added: “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.”
The word “Orda” is Russian for “horde.”
Konanykhin told Insider he has not visited Russia since 1992.
When asked if he feared reprisal from Putin, the businessman said: "Putin is known to murder his opponents. He has millions of them now."
Konanykhin: Putin's foe
Konanykhin has a colourful history and had run-ins with the Russian government.
In 1996, he was arrested while living in the U.S. after Russian authorities claimed he had embezzled US$8 million from the Russian Exchange Bank.
FBI agents testified that the Russian mafia were to get rid of Konanykhin.
Konanykhin was granted political asylum and the case was settled.
His asylum was revoked several years later, but his deportation was cancelled by a district judge, who overruled it.
The judge said a decision to return him to Moscow “stinks”.
Konanykhin is now a member of the "Circle of Money" on the television series, Unicorn Hunters, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former 'NSync singer Lance Bass.
Putin accused of blowing up buildings in Russia
Konanykhin’s reference to blowing up buildings in Russia pertains to a conspiracy theory about how Putin came to power.
Putin became prime minister in 1999.
He was named acting president on the last day of that year.
By March 2000, he was elected to a full term.
Putin's popularity stemmed from domestic support for him in the wake of the Second Chechen War.
Four apartment blocks in 1999 were hit by explosions which killed about 300 people.
The attacks were blamed on Chechen terrorits.
But the alternative theory is that the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, was responsible for the attacks.
Putin was head of the FSB from 1998 to 1999.
Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was a proponent of the theory.
He was assassinated in London in 2006 using the radioactive isotope polonium-210.
Leads traced put his death in the hands of Russian agents.
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