Russia’s richest people lost 32 billion as the crisis with Ukraine deepens

The fortunes of Russian billionaires have fallen by $ 32 billion since the beginning of the year, with the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine ready to worsen the situation.

President Biden on Tuesday announced sanctions aimed at selling Russian government bonds abroad and the country’s elites, and said he was sending an unspecified number of additional US troops to the Baltic in a defensive move to defend NATO countries.

Gennady Timchenko tops the list of Russian billionaires who have seen their fortunes plummet as one-third of their wealth disappears this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires list of the world’s 500 richest people.

The 69-year-old Timchenko, the son of a Soviet soldier who met and befriended Putin in the early 1990s, now has a fortune of $ 16 billion, with most of his fortune coming from a stake in Russian production company Novatek.

The fortune of Novatek shareholder Leonid Mikhelson has fallen 6.2% this year, while Lukoil chairman Vahit Alekperov has seen the net worth of his fortune fall by $ 3.5 billion over the same period. as the share of the energy company has fallen by almost 17% since the beginning of the year.

The country’s 23 billionaires currently have $ 343 billion in assets, up from $ 375 billion at the end of 2021.

The United Kingdom has also imposed sanctions on five Russian banks and three individual businessmen, including Tiimchenko.

Also on the UK list are 65-year-old Boris Rotenberg and his 48-year-old nephew Igor, whose families built their fortunes through the gas pipeline company Stroygazmontazh.

Igor’s father Arkady, one of Putin’s former judo partners, sold the pipeline company in 2019 for $ 1.3 billion.