Bank of America cut short an online client conference on geopolitics and apologised to attendees after complaints over pro-Russia comments made by some speakers when discussing the Ukraine war, according to three people who attended the event.
The conference was designed as a two-day event beginning on Tuesday, but Bank of America Securities cancelled three sessions addressing US sanctions on Russia and Russia-US relations.
Timothy Ash, of BlueBay Asset Management, who attended the conference told the Financial Times: “Clearly Moscow is in an information war with the west. It has an interest in influencing how western banks portray the conflict, and banks need to be mindful of that.”
“It was more like Bank of Russia than Bank of America,” said one of those present. “The whole event was overwhelmingly pro-Russian.”
Another person described Tuesday’s sessions as “relentlessly anti-Ukrainian”.
Two people on the call said Daniel Sheehan, Bank of America Securities’ senior vice-president for international relations, was critical of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing him as “a master manipulator and mimic” about whom there were “serious concerns” in the US administration. A spokesperson for Zelenskyy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A BofA spokesperson said the bank disagreed with this interpretation of Sheehan’s remarks, which had been intended to reflect the views of others, rather than his own.
One of those present said they felt one speaker, Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, “said stuff that was absolutely shocking . . . it was straight out of the foreign ministry of Russia”.
However, Petro has countered that people who complained “had their own agenda” and had “really not listened” to what he said.
In his prepared speech, which he shared with the FT, Petro’s remarks included: “Under any scenario, Ukraine would be the overwhelming loser” in the war. Its industrial capacity would be “devastated”, partly by its economic policy of becoming an agricultural superpower “as recommended by the EU and the United States” and its population would continue to shrink as people left to look for employment abroad.
“If this is what Russia meant by removing Ukraine’s capacity to wage war against Russia, then it will arguably have won,” he said.
He said the US government had no interest in a ceasefire because it had the most to gain from a prolonged conflict through a “dramatic increase in EU energy and military dependence on the US”.
After the talk, Ash asked Petro a number of questions. One attendee said Petro’s views were “not praising [Russian president Vladimir] Putin” and that it appeared that Ash wanted to push an agenda.
Ash said his only agenda was “to make sure western banks adopt a balanced approach to the conflict and don’t get sucked into just echoing Moscow’s talking points”.
Another person present said that, while views such as Petro’s may be offensive to many in the west, it was important to hear them expressed. “It does convey information about how other people think,” the person said.