By Man Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s richest individuals added $152 billion to their wealth over the previous 12 months, buoyed by excessive costs for pure sources and rebounding from the massive lack of fortunes they skilled simply after the Ukraine warfare started, Forbes Russia mentioned.
Russia has 110 official billionaires within the checklist, up 22 from final 12 months, in line with Forbes’ Russian version, which mentioned their whole wealth elevated to $505 billion from $353 billion when the 2022 checklist was introduced.
The checklist would have been longer had not 5 billionaires – DST World founder Yuri Milner, Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky, Freedom Finance founder Timur Turlov, and JetBrains co-founders Sergei Dmitriev and Valentin Kipyatkov – renounced their Russian citizenship, Forbes mentioned.
“Final 12 months’s ranking outcomes have been additionally influenced by apocalyptic predictions in regards to the Russian economic system,” Forbes mentioned, including that the full wealth of Russia’s billionaires was $606 billion in 2021, earlier than the warfare started.
After President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 final 12 months, the West imposed what it casts as essentially the most extreme sanctions in trendy historical past on Russia’s economic system – and a few of its richest individuals – in an try and punish Putin for the warfare.
Putin mentioned the West was making an attempt to destroy Russia and has repeatedly touted the failure of Western sanctions to destroy the Russian economic system, and even cease Western luxurious items – not to mention primary components – from ending up in Russia.
Russia’s economic system shrank 2.1% in 2022 beneath the stress of Western sanctions, however it was in a position to promote oil, metals and different pure sources to world markets, particularly to China, India and the Center East.
The Worldwide Financial Fund this month raised its forecast for Russian progress in 2023 to 0.7% from 0.3%, however lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3% from 2.1%, saying it additionally anticipated labour shortages and the exodus of Western firms to hurt the nation’s economic system.
The worth of Urals oil, the lifeblood of the Russian economic system, averaged $76.09 per barrel in 2022, up from $69 in 2021. Fertiliser costs have been additionally excessive final 12 months.
Andrei Melnichenko, who made a fortune in fertilisers, was listed as Russia’s richest man by Forbes with an estimated price of $25.2 billion, greater than double what he was estimated to be price final 12 months. Melnichenko couldn’t be reached for fast touch upon the Forbes rating.
Vladimir Potanin, president and largest shareholder of Nornickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and refined nickel, was ranked as second richest in Russia with a fortune of $23.7 billion. Potanin couldn’t instantly be reached for touch upon the Forbes rating.
Vladimir Lisin, who controls steelmaker NLMK and was ranked final 12 months as Russia’s richest man, was positioned third within the Forbes Russia checklist with a fortune of $22.1 billion. Lisin couldn’t be instantly reached for touch upon the Forbes rating.
Many Russian billionaires forged Western sanctions as a slipshod, and even racist, software.
Constructing fortunes because the Soviet Union crumbled, a small group of tycoons often known as the oligarchs persuaded the Kremlin beneath late President Boris Yeltsin to provide them management over among the greatest oil and metals firms on the earth.
The privatisation offers typically propelled the tycoons into the league of the world’s tremendous wealthy, incomes them the enduring dislike of thousands and thousands of impoverished Russians.
However beneath Putin, among the unique oligarchs, equivalent to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, have been stripped of their belongings, which finally ended up beneath the sway of state firms typically run by former spies.
New Russian names within the Forbes checklist embrace billionaires who made their cash in snacks, supermarkets, chemical compounds, constructing and prescribed drugs, indicating that Russian home demand has remained robust regardless of the sanctions.
(Reporting by Man Faulconbridge; Modifying by Frances Kerry)
