Originally Syndicated on June 21, 2023 @ 6:15 am
Oleg Deripaska is accused of utilizing shell businesses and working with others to orchestrate the $3 million sale of a California music studio and to assist his girlfriend in gaining entry to the United States to give birth.
About Oleg Deripaska
Oleg Deripaska claims to be a Russian manufacturer and billionaire. Oleg Deripaska amassed wealth from previously state-owned assets that were privatized in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise. He founded Basic Element, which he describes as one of Russia’s greatest industrial conglomerates, and Volnoe Delo, the country’s largest humanitarian foundation. He was the president of En+ Group, a Russian energy firm, and United firm Rusal, the world’s second-largest aluminum company, until he stepped down in 2018.
Oleg Deripaska claims to have been described as a victor in Russia’s “aluminum wars” of the 1990s, which were usually violent clashes between businesses vying for state-owned enterprises. Deripaska launched Rusal in 2000, the outcome of a collaboration between Sibirsky Aluminium and Roman Abramovich’s Millhouse Capital. Rusal combined with SUAL Group and Glencore International AG to establish UC Rusal in 2007, with Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska serving as chairman.
Oleg Deripaska was previously Russia’s richest man, but he lost much of his fortune during the 2007-08 financial crisis. Forbes projected his wealth to be $3.2 billion as of June 2022, making him the 920th richest person in the world. Oleg Deripaska purchased Cypriot citizenship.
Oleg Deripaska was sanctioned by the United States in 2018 for his role in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The British government sanctioned seven oligarchs in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including asset freezes and visa bans. Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska appealed for peace in Ukraine in March 2022, saying that destroying Ukraine would be a “colossal mistake.” Several months later, Russian authorities confiscated his Sochi hotel complex.
The Sanctions Against Oleg Deripaska (Has He Breached Them?)
While Oleg Deripaska was involved in a bid to buy the Daimler Chrysler Group in July 2006, it was claimed that the US canceled his entry visa; the anonymous official declined to specify a reason for the visa revocation. The Wall Street Journal speculated that it could be because Oleg Deripaska has been suspected of having ties to Russian organized crime, citing two unnamed US law enforcement officials as sources.
The visa was canceled on August 27, 2018, according to the New York Times, due to worries that Oleg Deripaska could try to launder money through real estate deals.
Oleg Deripaska was granted a multiple-entry visa in 2005; a spokeswoman for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment. Senate records show that former Senate Republican leader and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole and his legal firm, Alston & Bird, lobbied on his behalf. In 2005, Alston & Bird was paid around $260,000 for work on “Department of State visa policies and procedures” related to Oleg Deripaska.
Oleg Deripaska was granted entrance again in 2009 and visited the United States twice. According to two unidentified FBI administration officials, Deripaska spoke with investigators about a continuing criminal investigation, the facts of which were not known or publicized, according to the Wall Street Journal. During his visits, Deripaska met with top executives from investment giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Deripaska’s aluminum company, United Company RUSAL, was preparing for an initial public offering.
The resolution of Deripaska’s visa troubles, which had been a source of concern for potential investors, served to calm lenders. The State Department has never stated why his visa was canceled and has refused to comment on his 2009 travels.
The visits were planned outside of the normal protocol because the US remains concerned about Oleg Deripaska’s business relationships. Oleg Deripaska has constantly denied any involvement with organized crime and claims his business competitors smeared him in order to have his visa canceled.
When questioned by the BBC in July 2009, Oleg Deripaska stated that the authorities in the United States were seeking to blackmail him by canceling his visa, influencing potential investors negatively, in order to force Deripaska to cooperate with them.
In October 2021, NBC News claimed that Russia had recently granted Deripaska diplomatic status, allowing him to enter the United States with immunity.
Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, has been accused of violating US sanctions.
A federal grand jury in New York indicted Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska on Thursday for allegedly breaking US sanctions imposed on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
Oleg Deripaska, a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is accused of using shell companies and conspiring with others to orchestrate a $3 million sale of a California music studio, send an Easter gift to an unidentified U.S. television host, and deliver flowers to his girlfriend in 2020 while she was in the United States giving birth to his child.
According to federal authorities, Oleg Deripaska spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in transactions so that his child may benefit from the United States healthcare system and become a citizen. Prosecutors said Deripaska instructed his girlfriend on how to obtain a visa and warned her to be “careful” before an interview with US immigration authorities in 2020.
According to the indictment, Deripaska’s accomplices attempted to assist his girlfriend, Ekaterina Voronina, in returning to the United States later this year to give birth to the couple’s second child, but she was denied entry.
Voronina informed immigration officers that the father of her first kid and the unborn child was “Alec Deribasko,” according to the indictment. According to the indictment, when asked if she knew Oleg Deripasko, she responded he was simply a buddy.
According to the accusation, Voronina arrived in Los Angeles on a private plane that cost $160,000 Euros (approximately $150,000) and was arranged through a Cypress-based charter business.
According to the indictment, Oleg Deripaska also utilized a shell company, Gracetown Inc., to keep three luxury residences in the United States — two in Manhattan and one in Washington — and employed his associates to help him obtain U.S. goods and technology.
Oleg Deripaska, 52, was charged with one count of violating US sanctions. His lawyer did not reply quickly to a request for comment.
“The hypocrisy of seeking refuge and citizenship in the United States while reaping the benefits of a ruthless, anti-democratic regime is striking,” said Andrew Adams, the chairman of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force. “That Deripaska practiced hypocrisy through lies and criminal sanctions evasion has made him a fugitive from the country he so desperately wished to exploit.”
In addition to Voronina, two of Deripaska’s suspected collaborators, Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova and Olga Shriki, were charged in connection with the scam.
Voronina, 33, of Russia, has been accused of making false statements.
Shriki, 42, of New Jersey, was charged with one count of record destruction and one count of conspiracy to violate sanctions. She was apprehended on Thursday. It was unclear whether she had retained legal counsel.
Bardakova, 45, of Russia, has been accused of giving false statements to federal authorities as well as plotting to violate sanctions.
In April 2018, the Treasury Department sanctioned two dozen Russian billionaires and officials, including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum tycoon.
According to a news release announcing the sanctions, Oleg Deripaska is being probed for money laundering and is suspected of “threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and participating in extortion and racketeering.
He sued the United States over the sanctions, but the case was dismissed by a federal court judge in June. Oleg Deripaska has filed an appeal.
The accusations were filed roughly a year after the FBI raided Deripaska’s houses in Washington and New York.
According to NBC News, the Russian millionaire has been rejected for multiple visas to enter the United States due to his alleged ties to organized crime.
Oleg Deripaska’s Perplexing Lawsuit Against the United States Government
When the US Treasury sanctioned Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and his firms in April 2018, the oligarch was busy preparing for Russian Orthodox Easter celebrations and appeared unconcerned. “The events this morning are very unfortunate, but not unexpected,” he said in an email to Forbes at the time. “Certainly, the grounds for putting my name on the list are groundless, ridiculous, and absurd.”
Oleg Deripaska is less optimistic about a year later. Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit on March 15 against the US Treasury Department, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Andrea Gacki, the director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), alleging that the US violated “the rule of law” by targeting him “simply because it is politically expedient or publicly popular to do so.”
His attorney claims that the allegations used by OFAC to demonstrate Deripaska’s criminal history – bribery, money laundering, extortion, and ordering the murder of an anonymous businessman — are all baseless. The suit also says that since the sanctions were announced last April, his net worth has dropped by $7.5 billion, or 81%, and that he has become “radioactive to any person dealing with him anywhere in the world.”
The oligarch even claims that the sanctions have harmed his reputation in his home country. He cited recent remarks by Russian lawmaker Gennady Zyuganov, who said
Oleg Deripaska had given his firms “to the Anglo-Saxons to control” by agreeing to reduce his interests in companies to less than 50%.
According to Steven Fish, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and author of Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics, this is unlikely. “It’s all political theater.” “No one takes Gennady Zyughanov seriously,” Fish argues.
According to Forbes, his net worth claims are similarly false, and his case is a long shot. According to Forbes Real-Time Rankings, Deripaska’s net worth was $6.76 billion on April 6, 2018, the day the sanctions were announced. His net worth was $3.58 billion on the day he filed his complaint (March 15, 2019), a 47% decrease. In the previous year, his net worth fell to $3.07 billion on December 19, a 56% decline. While the public companies in which he has a majority stake suffered greatly as a result of the sanctions, none plummeted by 81%.
Oleg Deripaska and his representatives did not reply to several requests for comment on the lawsuit’s net worth claims.
Aside from the perplexing assertions about his declining net worth, there’s the question of whether Deripaska’s legal arguments will be successful. According to more than a half-dozen lawyers with sanctions knowledge, as well as political scientists and economists specialized in Russian politics, Deripaska’s action has a minimal chance of victory due to poor legal arguments and the low success rates of previous comparable lawsuits.
Erich C. Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates, Deripaska’s lawyer in Washington, D.C., declined to comment specifically on Deripaska’s case but did speak to Forbes. “The fact that suing OFAC has a low success rate is maybe one material factor to consider,” Ferrari adds, “but certainly just because they [OFAC] win a lot doesn’t mean this person shouldn’t pursue their delisting when they feel that listing is wrong.”
The extent of Deripaska’s role in election tampering is unknown, but the penalties are intended to send a message to Russia by targeting people who have benefited from being in Putin’s inner circle, according to Bruce Marks, an international litigation attorney specializing in US-Russian matters.
It is indisputable that he is an oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, ties that an English judge described as ‘umbilical,'” Marks said, referring to an opinion written by Justice Christopher Clarke in the High Court of Justice in London in 2008, during which a former business partner sued him for failing to honor an alleged business deal.
Marks disagrees with Deripaska’s contention that the criminal allegations mentioned in OFAC’s sanctions statements – money laundering, extortion, racketeering, and death threats — are baseless. There have been cases filed throughout the United States, including cases I filed with declarations and affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury that Deripaska was engaged in extortion and other criminal activity,” Marks said. “The suggestion that the US government does not have enough information in its files to support his inclusion on the sanctions list is absurd.”
However, despite signed testimonials, litigants have never triumphed against Deripaska for the alleged criminal behavior of his former business partners. In the early 2000s, Marks, on behalf of several of Deripaska’s former business associates, sued the Russian oligarch in federal court in the Southern District of New York and then in Delaware. The complaints accused the Russian businessman and his erstwhile partner Mikhail Cherney of gaining control of numerous properties in Russia through death threats, fraud, and associations with the Russian-American Izmailovo Mafia. Both were dismissed because it was determined that the cases should be heard in Russia. Following the dismissals, Marks brought the case to Caribbean courts, where the two parties agreed to a confidential settlement.
According to Forbes licensee Forbes Russia, Deripaska’s fortune now spans many industries, including energy, construction, insurance, finance, airports, and agriculture. However, the majority of his fortune is derived from En+ Group, a publicly traded holding company he formed in 2002 to handle his aluminum and hydroelectric businesses, which include UC Rusal, one of the world’s largest aluminum corporations. The En+ Group is listed on the London and Moscow stock exchanges and has holdings in more than 19 countries. On April 9, 2018, the first trading day following the imposition of sanctions, its London-listed stock lost 40% of its value. Meanwhile, UC Rusal lost 50% of its value on the same day.
Oleg Deripaska has complied with OFAC standards by reducing his ownership share in En+ Group to less than 50% since the penalties were imposed. Deripaska owned almost 70% of the holding group prior to the sanctions. Deripaska reduced his stake to 44.95%, now worth $2.5 billion, by issuing new shares, giving control of pledged shares to the state-owned VTB Bank, and donating shares to an undisclosed charitable foundation (roughly $1.2 billion less than he would have owned had he not been forced to reduce his stake). The Treasury Department eased sanctions against En+ Group and numerous other Deripaska-linked entities on January 27, 2019. Oleg Deripaska, on the other hand, remains sanctioned, and his assets in the United States remain frozen.
The oligarch has a habit of emerging from the ashes. Oleg Deripaska began as a small-time metals trader while studying physics at Moscow State University, where he graduated in 1993. During the post-Soviet privatization phase of the 1990s, Deripaska met brothers Lev and Mikhail Cherney and began collaborating with them to consolidate the country’s largest aluminum factories. “That’s when I started having problems,” Deripaska explained to Forbes in 2001. During the “aluminum wars,” hundreds of executives, bankers, merchants, and mob bosses were killed in the metals fight.
In the end, Oleg Deripaska, who told Forbes in 2001 that he stayed clear of the gang wars by focusing on the assembly lines inside aluminum smelters, came out victorious with ownership of Russian Aluminum, the predecessor to UC Rusal, which he formed with Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Oleg Deripaska continued to build his business, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and the Russian government to purchase holdings in manufacturing and insurance companies, as well as to consolidate the aluminum industry. Deripaska entered the Forbes World’s Billionaires list in 2002, with a worth of $1.1 billion. His net worth peaked at $28 billion in 2008, owing to an increase in aluminum prices and his ownership of vehicle maker GAZ, aircraft producer Aviacor, and insurance business Ingosstrakh.
He was the richest person in Russia and the ninth richest person in the world in March of that year. Then came the financial crisis, and Deripaska’s net wealth plummeted by an amazing 87.5% to $3.5 billion in a single year as a result of high loans (incurred in a rush to expand UC Rusal) and disastrous investments, including a stake in Norilsk Nickel, whose stock collapsed 80% shortly after he purchased it.
But he lived, and he probably owes it to the Kremlin. To pay margin calls, he had to sell a $1.5 billion holding in Canadian automaker Magna International and a $500 million stake in German construction business Hochhtief. However, Oleg Deripaska got a $4.5 billion loan from a state-controlled bank in order to retain his Norilsk Nickel ownership. Then, in 2010, UC Rusal announced a financial restructuring, and he brought the company public on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Oleg Deripaska had a stake worth more than $8 billion in the IPO, bringing his total net worth that year back up to $10.7 billion.
Oleg Deripaska is a “Teflon oligarch,” according to Amy Knight, a former Woodrow Wilson fellow, and author of Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder. According to Knight, Deripaska, along with the three Russian billionaires who make up the Alfa Group (Mikhail Fridman, German Kahn, and Pytor Aven), is among those in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s good graces who have unprecedented access to get out of sticky situations. “They know how to meet Putin’s needs, who could destroy them all while enjoying the wealth and immunity from prosecution that other oligarchs have not.”
“(Deripaska) is taking one for the team,” says sanctions lawyer Marks. The Russian government “understands the circumstances and pressures applied to Oleg Deripaska, and I don’t think anybody at [Putin’s] level would seriously fault him for doing what he did.”
Why would Deripaska file this action with such a slim likelihood of success? The case is a bit ridiculous, but Deripaska likes to be in your face,” says Anders Aslund, an economist and senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council specializing in Russia and Ukraine.
Perhaps Oleg Deripaska said it best in a 2001 Forbes interview: “We simply have an image problem.”
FBI agent recruited Oleg Deripaska
Authorities in the United States have arrested former senior FBI employee Charles McGonigal on suspicion of working for Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who is sanctioned by the United States.
During his time at the FBI, an official involved in investigations targeting Russian oligarchs made contact with a Deripaska staffer and then began working directly on his behalf, attempting to have sanctions repealed.
The indictment in the case of Charles McGonigal, 54, has been published on the official website of the United States Department of Justice. According to the CIA, he gathered material on a big Russian billionaire whose name was withheld at the request of Deripaska.
On January 23, the ex-US agent was detained in New York and accused of breaking US sanctions, conspiracy, and money laundering for his work for Deripaska. According to ABC News, McGonigal is one of the most senior ex-FBI agents ever charged with a felony.
According to the conclusion, McGonigal worked for the FBI from 1996 to 2018, and in the two years leading up to his retirement, he led the FBI’s counterintelligence unit in New York and engaged in “investigations against Russian oligarchs,” including Deripaska.
Sergei Shestakov, a former Soviet and Russian ambassador, is another defendant. According to the Ministry of Justice, Shestakov served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and Russia from 1979 to 1993, and after obtaining American citizenship, he worked as an interpreter in US governmental institutions and courts. According to The Washington Post, the former agent faces up to 80 years in prison, while Shestakov faces up to 85 years because he is also accused of giving false testimony. McGonigal entered a guilty plea.
“You already know who”
According to the conclusion, McGonigal and Shestakov attempted to organize the removal of Deripaska from the sanctions list in 2019, and in 2021, at the request of the billionaire, they initiated an inquiry against another big Russian businessman dubbed “Oligarch-2” in court records. Prosecutors claim that Oleg Deripaska directed McGonigal and Shestakov to “focus on Oligarch-2’s interest in a large Russian corporation,” for “control” of which he challenged Deripaska. McGonigal and Shestakov’s tasks included determining what assets Oligarch-2 might have outside of Russia and whether this individual held passports from other countries. The US authorities provided no information on Oligarch-2 or the company, which is of interest to businesses.
Both inmates acted on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, according to FBI Assistant Director Michael Driscoll, and “fraudulently used an American organization to conceal their activities in violation of US law.” McGonagall was able to receive information on $500 million in assets before the start of searches at his residence in November 2021.
Rusal, Deripaska’s long-held company, fought for control of Norilsk Nickel with its principal shareholder, Vladimir Potanin. Formally, the matter was concluded roughly ten years ago, but it was revealed at the end of last year that Rusal had launched a fresh action against Potanin in the High Court of London.
In August 2021, Forbes reported that Deripaska’s AFK Sistema and Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s AFK Sistema were negotiating the partition of shares in Natura Siberica. However, the businessman’s representative stated that Deripaska has nothing to do with the Natura Siberica situation.
According to the indictment, McGonigal worked for Oleg Deripaska after leaving the FBI and received money from him via an offshore law business. We’re talking about different amounts: $25 thousand, $51,000, and then three further payments of roughly $41.8 thousand from August to November 2021.
At the same time, the ex-FBI agent attempted to conceal his relationship with Oleg Deripaska, telling associates that he was working for a “rich Russian guy” and emphasizing that his work was lawful, according to the paper. During conversations with Shestakov, McGonigal frequently referred to Deripaska as “a big man” and “you know who.”
During his time at the FBI, McGonigal dealt with Wikileaks, investigated former President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, and oversaw the autopsy of American spies in China. Authorities in the United States did not prosecute him with espionage, but it was later revealed that he worked not only with Russia: another investigation was started against McGonigal in Washington on suspicions of collecting $ 225 thousand in cash from an Albanian person working for a Chinese energy business.
In April 2018, Oleg Deripaska and affiliated firms IC Rusal, En +, and EuroSibEnergo were added to the sanctions list. By December, the corporations were able to negotiate the easing of sanctions with US officials. The major condition was that Deripaska’s stake in En + is reduced from approximately 70% to less than 45%. Simultaneously, the billionaire and the GAZ group, which he controls via Russian Machines, remained on the list.
The billionaire attempted to dispute the sanctions in a US court, but he lost both the main trial and the appeal in October 2022.
Oleg Deripaska claimed in the lawsuit that he was the victim of a political fight in the United States as a result of Russia’s suspected intervention in the 2016 presidential election. According to Deripaska, sanctions against him were applied unfairly and illegally, causing him to lose $ 7.5 billion, or almost 81% of his assets.
This Deripaska-related issue in the United States is far from the first. His name has regularly come up in numerous Russia-related investigations. So, it was discovered in one of the investigations following the 2016 US presidential election that Deripaska had worked for many years with the head of Trump’s campaign headquarters, Paul Manafort.
This caught the attention of the FBI. Deripaska and Manafort confirmed that the latter received money from Deripaska for his work as a financial adviser. And in 2014, Oleg Deripaska accused Manafort of embezzling nearly $19 million intended for investment and sued him.
The lawsuit against Morgan Stanley
Deripaska sued Morgan Stanley in 2015, claiming that the bank had shorted sold his $1.5 billion investment in Magna International shares made in 2008 using insider knowledge.
Deripaska joined Magna as a strategic partner, according to an announcement made by Frank Stronach, chairman of Magna International, in May 2007.
Using Magna shares as security for a $1.2 billion loan from BNP Paribas, Deripaska’s Veleron investment entity purchased Magna equity in 2007. Through a swap arrangement with BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley became involved in the deal by taking on the loan’s risks in exchange for a set payment from Paribas.
Magna’s stock price crashed in September 2008 as a result of the worldwide economic crisis. Veleron received a $93 million margin call from BNP. When Morgan Stanley discovered that Veleron was not likely to fulfill the call, it shorted the stock. According to Deripaska, Morgan Stanley violated its obligations and participated in illegal insider trading, which caused Veleron to sustain losses of $15 million to $25 million.
The New York jury found that Morgan Stanley had “acquired inside information and traded on it despite a duty to keep it confidential and not trade on it” in November 2015. The jury also found that Morgan Stanley did not have the intention to mislead Veleron. Veleron declared that it will appeal and that it vehemently disagreed.
Concluding with some deep insight into the Russian- Ukraine War and Oligarchy
A Short History of Post-Soviet Oligarchy
The Ukrainian oligarchy has its roots in the 1990s when Ukraine—along with other nations in Eastern Europe, the Southern Caucasus, and Central Asia—allowed some people and their clans to seize control of the Soviet industrial legacy, the new state’s administration, the state budget, and public opinion at the same time.
The interdependence of material wealth, clout in politics, and social connections served as the foundation of the post-Soviet oligarchy. It established stable clans and patronal pyramids, vertical networks of interpersonal connections that linked a clan to numerous inferior social groups, and it brought together public administrators, the police, judges, MPs, and politicians.
Oligarchy forbade the division of the public and private domains in Ukraine. (It also did so in other post-Soviet countries like Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Russia.) The European Court of Auditors defines the phenomena of “grand corruption” as “the abuse of high-level power that benefits the few at the expense of the many.” It gave rise to such systems.
Uncertainty surrounds the post-Soviet oligarchy phenomenon. On the one hand, oligarchy and widespread corruption make it difficult for democracies to uphold the rule of law, ensure that everyone has access to the legal system, and protect private property. Therefore, oligarchy may be a challenge for liberal democracies.
On the other hand, oligarchy provides structural barriers for people with authoritarian tendencies because it takes the form of numerous rival clans. Clan rivalry for supremacy at the center of authority allows for some degree of citizen autonomy and produces less predictable election outcomes.
The post-Soviet republics saw the emergence of oligarchy, and in many ways, the fate of these states and the oligarchic clans were intertwined.
Some post-communist nations went through some form of deoligarchization. There are two possible outcomes that could come from this technique.
In Russia, the process was different and produced a different result. Between 2002 and 2004 Putin, whose regime had just taken an authoritarian turn, forced Russian oligarchs and their clans into a single patronal pyramid, which he himself headed. The legal proceedings against former Yukos chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the many criminal prosecutions of regional oligarchic figures showed the clans what they could expect if they did not fall in line. Oligarchs as an independent political force seized to exist. At the same time, corruption on a grand scale was becoming part of the real political system, as formal and informal institutions served the interests of the ruling elite.
By 2021, the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR, only a handful of post-Soviet countries had more or less independent oligarchic clans. Ukraine was one of them, along with Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova.
The Effect of War on Oligarchy
The ongoing war in Ukraine has delayed but not canceled the deoligarchization process. The destruction of Ukrainian industry, economic hardships, and the mobilization of many workers have weakened the economic might of the oligarchs. According to Forbes data for the U.S. and Ukraine, the wealth of the following individuals has dropped considerably from January to July of this year:
Rinat Akhmetov: from $13.7 billion to $4.4 billion
Victor Pinchuk: from $2.6 billion to $2 billion
Vadym Novinsky: from $3.5 billion to $1.4 billion
Genadiy Boholyubov: from $2 billion to $1.1 billion
Ihor Kolomoisky: from $1.8 billion to $1 billion
Petro Poroshenko: from $1.6 billion to $0.7 billion
The majority of these people are making every effort to disavow the legal justifications that would put them on the list of oligarchs President Zelensky announced in June. The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine estimates that 86 people in the country qualify as oligarchs under Ukrainian law.
Novinsky handed up his position in parliament in order to avoid being classified as an oligarch. Akmetov, the founder of System Capital Management Group and the owner of the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol sold his media companies and announced that he would give the Ukrainian government the licenses for those enterprises. Kolomoisky, the creator of PrivatBank, appears to have reached the end of the oligarchic era as well after supposedly losing his Ukrainian citizenship.
Out of the six, only Petro Poroshenko is still involved in politics. He has been a constant opponent of the Zelensky administration and is one of the leaders of a parliamentary opposition group. Although the mass media outlets that had previously been linked to him have been shut down, it appears that the charges of high treason brought against him have not been vigorously explored in recent months.
Thus, the oligarchy may eventually come to an end as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky’s deoligarchization initiatives, and Ukraine’s anticorruption system together. Will Ukraine take advantage of this opportunity is the question. Upon deoligarchization, will Ukraine be pushed toward democracy or autocracy? Or will this post-Soviet conundrum simply vanish along with the era?
