President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday urged Russia’s richest businessmen to repay their ‘moral debt’ to society during the economic crisis.

“Perhaps nowhere in the world has business developed as fast as in our country,” Medvedev said in an interview due to be broadcast on state television on Sunday night. “People have been getting very rich in a very short time,” he said, according to the script posted on the Kremlin website . “Now it is time to return debts, moral debts, because the crisis is a test of maturity.”

Russia’s rapid transition to a market economy in 1990s gave birth to a group of super-rich businessmen known as ‘oligarchs’.

Medvedev and his powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have told businessmen the government was not planning to bail out all of them.

A tough line on oligarchs can help the Kremlin win additional support badly needed during the crisis from ordinary Russians, traditionally critical of the oligarchs.

The Kremlin worries social unrest could destabilise the country and undermine its current political system.
In the interview, Medvedev said the number of jobless in Russia has reached 6 million, including 2 million officially registered.

He said businessmen should be prepared to sacrifice part of their wealth to keep jobs for their employees. “If a man becomes a real businessmen, he can appreciate his employees and will try to put off part of his ideas, some of his personal consumption to maintain his staff, keep paying it, and save the business he was running in the past years,” Medvedev said.

About 1,000 demonstrators called for the Russian government to resign during a peaceful march in Vladivostok on Sunday, the latest protest linked to the economic crisis in Russia.

Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, has been the scene of some of the biggest anti-government protests since a global economic crisis enveloped Russia last year and hit its economy hard, leaving hundreds of thousands of people unemployed. “Putin resign. Government resign,” the marchers shouted as they marched through the city behind a police escort.