Russian billionaires’ wealth rose to this much with the Ukraine war: report | World news
Russia’s richest people added $152 billion to their wealth last year, driven by high prices for natural resources and recovery from the massive loss of wealth they experienced shortly after the Ukraine war began. Forbes Russia said.
Russia has 110 official billionaires on the list, up 22 from last year, according to the Russian edition of Forbes, which said their total wealth increased to $505 billion from $353 billion when the 2022 list was announced.
The list would have been longer if not five billionaires – DST Global founder Yuri Milner, Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky, Freedom Finance founder Timur Turlov, and JetBrains founders Sergei Dmitriev and Valentin Kipyatkov – renounced their Russian citizenship, Forbes said.
“Last year’s evaluation results were also influenced by apocalyptic predictions about the Russian economy,” Forbes said, adding that the total wealth of Russian billionaires was $606 billion in 2021, before the war began.
After President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on December 24 last year, the West imposed what it said were the strongest sanctions in modern history on the Russian economy – and some among the richest people – in an attempt to punish Putin for the war.
Putin says that the West is trying to destroy Russia and has repeatedly said the failure of Western sanctions to destroy the Russian economy, or even stop Western luxury goods – let alone the basic parts – from being completed. Russia.
Russia’s economy will shrink 2.1% in 2022 under the pressure of Western sanctions, but it is able to sell oil, metals and other minerals to global markets, especially to China, India and the Middle East .
The International Monetary Fund this month raised its forecast for Russia’s growth in 2023 to 0.7% from 0.3%, but lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3% from 2.1%, saying it still expects job shortages and exits of companies. West to harm the country’s economy. .
The price of Urals oil, the lifeblood of the Russian economy, will average $76.09 per barrel in 2022, up from $69 in 2021. Fertilizer prices also rose last year.
Andrei Melnichenko, who makes money in fertilizers, was listed as the richest man in Russia by Forbes with a net worth of $25.2 billion, more than double what he was estimated to be worth last year. Melnichenko could not be reached for immediate comment on the Forbes situation.
Vladimir Potanin, the chairman and largest shareholder of Nornickel, the largest producer of palladium and refined nickel, is the second richest in Russia with a fortune of $23.7 billion. Potanin could not immediately be reached for comment on the Forbes situation.
Vladimir Lisin, who runs the steelmaker NLMK and was ranked last year as the richest man in Russia, was placed third in the Forbes Russia list with a fortune of $22.1 billion. Lisin could not immediately be reached for comment on the Forbes situation.
Many Russian billionaires dismiss Western sanctions as an artificial, and even racist, tool.
Building wealth as the Soviet Union collapsed, a small group of dictators known as oligarchs urged the Kremlin under late President Boris Yeltsin to give them control over some of the world’s largest oil and steel companies.
Capitalization deals often drag financiers into the league of the world’s super-rich, earning them the enduring hatred of millions of impoverished Russians.
But under Putin, some of the original oligarchs, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, were stripped of their assets, which ultimately ended up under the influence of state agencies often run by former spies.
New Russian names on the Forbes list include billionaires who make their money in snacks, supermarkets, chemicals, housing and drugs, showing that Russian domestic demand has remained strong despite sanctions.
