In 2022, Russia’s richest people lost more than $38 billion as a result of Western sanctions imposed in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.
The top ten Russian oligarchs have a combined net worth of $186 billion, which is comparable to the market capitalization of significant publicly listed corporations such as McDonald’s and AMD.
But who are Russia’s ultra-wealthy? We used data from Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index to create today’s image, which depicts Russia’s wealthiest people… and the amount of money they’ve lost thus far as a result of the battle.
Table of Contents
Metals, art, luxury, and sports are all things that come to mind while thinking about metals.
Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s wealthiest man, has a 35 percent share in Nornickel, a Moscow-listed company.
The corporation is the leading producer of palladium, a metal used in automobile catalytic converters, as well as nickel, an important metal for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy.
| Rank | Name | Net worth USD | $ YTD change* | Bloomberg List |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Vladimir Potanin | $25.9B | -$5.00B | 53 |
| #2 | Leonid Mikhelson | $22.6B | -$9.87B | 66 |
| #3 | Alexey Mordashov | $22.5B | -$6.32B | 67 |
| #4 | Vladimir Lisin | $21.6B | -$6.44B | 69 |
| #5 | Alisher Usmanov | $19.0B | -$2.25B | 89 |
| #6 | Andrey Melnichenko | $17.8B | +$0.35B | 99 |
| #7 | Viktor Vekselberg | $16.7B | -$1.79B | 107 |
| #8 | Roman Abramovich | $14.1B | -$3.90B | 132 |
| #9 | Mikhail Prokhorov | $13.8B | -$0.23B | 138 |
| #10 | Suleiman Kerimov | $11.8B | -$3.37B | 177 |
| Total | $185.8B | -$38.8B |
It used to be that Potanin was one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends. He is now a big supporter of the arts, though. He just resigned from the Guggenheim Museum’s board of trustees after 20 years on the board.
Russian billionaires are known for their taste in art and luxury.
The Russian ultra-rich are also among the largest owners of private aircraft and superyachts, with some of them being seized by law enforcement as part of the sanctions on Russia.
Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s fifth wealthiest man, owns Dilbar, the world’s biggest motor yacht by gross tonnage. The yacht, which is 512 feet long and costs $800 million to build, employs 84 full-time crew members.
The Dilbar superyacht, owned by Alisher Usmanov, is the world’s biggest motor yacht by gross tonnage.
The boat, which was named after Usmanov’s mother and impounded by German officials, was subsequently determined to be owned by a Malta-based company and registered in the Cayman Islands.
The Russian billionaires are also heavily invested in sports, in addition to art and luxury.
Former Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is the new owner of Chelsea Football Club, a London-based soccer club. While attempting to sell the club for $3.9 billion, he was sanctioned by the United Kingdom.
From 2009 until 2019, Mikhail Prokhorov, the founder of Onexim Group, a Moscow-based conglomerate with interests in banking, insurance, and real estate, controlled the Brooklyn Nets basketball club and its home stadium.
Vladimir Lisin, chairman of the steel company NLMK, is also on the list. He is the head of the European Shooting Confederation, a shooting sports enthusiast.
Are your fortunes fading? Not so quickly.
It is not the first time that Russian billionaires have been subjected to severe economic penalties. Since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, the EU, US, UK, Switzerland, and Canada have sanctioned 20 Russian oligarchs.
The majority of them hold property in the names of relatives or have assets registered in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands or the Isle of Man.
Steel baron Alexey Mordashov, for example, transferred his controlling share in gold miner Nordgold to his wife, Marina, after being sanctioned.
Russia’s billionaires, despite the collapse of the ruble and the demise of the Moscow stock market, have found inventive methods to protect their wealth and properties.