Russian Billionaires Increased Their Fortune By $152 Billion Last Year.

According to sources, Russia’s wealthiest people added $152 billion to their fortunes in the last year, supported by strong natural resource prices and recovering from the massive loss of fortunes they suffered immediately after the Ukraine war began. Russia has 110 official billionaires on the list, up 22 from last year, with their total worth increasing to $505 billion from $353 billion when the 2022 list was revealed.

Sources said that if five billionaires – DST Global founder Yuri Milner, Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky, Freedom Finance founder Timur Turlov, and JetBrains co-founders Sergei Dmitriev and Valentin Kipyatkov – had not relinquished their Russian citizenship, the list would have been larger. Last year’s rating results were also impacted by ominous projections about the Russian economy, with the total fortune of Russia’s billionaires estimated to reach $606 billion in 2021 before the conflict began.

Following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send soldiers into Ukraine on February 24, last year, the West placed what it calls the most punitive sanctions in modern history on Russia’s economy – and some of its wealthiest citizens – in an effort to punish Putin for the conflict.

Putin has often stated that the West is attempting to destroy Russia and has cited the inability of Western sanctions to ruin the Russian economy or even prevent Western luxury products, much alone fundamental parts, from reaching Russia. Under the strain of Western sanctions, Russia’s economy fell 2.1% in 2022, but it was still able to export oil, metals, and other natural resources to global markets, particularly China, India, and the Middle East.

The International Monetary Fund upped its projection for Russian growth in 2023 to 0.7% from 0.3% but reduced its forecast for 2024 to 1.3% from 2.1%, citing manpower shortages and the migration of Western corporations as threats to the country’s economy. The price of Urals oil, the Russian economy’s lifeblood, averaged $76.09 per barrel in 2022, up from $69 in 2021. Last year, fertiliser costs were similarly high.

Top three billionaires of Russian lands.

1. Andrei Melnichenko, who built a fortune in fertilisers, was named Russia’s richest man by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $25.2 billion, more than double what his worth was last year. 
2. With a wealth of $23.7 billion, Vladimir Potanin, president and major shareholder of Nornickel (GMKN.MM), the world’s largest producer of palladium & refined nickel, was rated second richest in Russia. 
3. With a wealth of $22.1 billion, Vladimir Lisin was rated third on the Forbes Russia list. 

Many Russian millionaires regard Western sanctions as ineffective if not discriminatory, tools.

As the Soviet Union dissolved, a tiny number of tycoons known as oligarchs persuaded the Kremlin, led by late President Boris Yeltsin, to hand them control over some of the world’s largest oil and metals corporations. Privatisation transactions frequently catapulted the tycoons into the ranks of the world’s superrich, garnering the ire of millions of impoverished Russians. However, under Putin, several original billionaires, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, were stripped of their assets, which finally fell under the control of state corporations operated by former spies.

New Russian billionaires on the Forbes list include those who built their fortunes in snacks, groceries, chemicals, construction, and medicines, demonstrating that Russian domestic demand has remained robust despite the sanctions.

Conclusion.

Though there is an increase in the wealth of billionaires, this may not guarantee a good decade for Russian lands as its move to capture Ukraine is being witnessed as a bad move in many parts of the world. So let’s see whether the enhancement in the billionaire’s list will bring good fortune for Russian territory or not!