Oleg Deripaska is a Russian oligarch, known for his close ties to the country’s current president Vladimir Putin. Deripaska founded in 1997 Basic Element (formerly Sibirsky Aluminum Group), one of Russia’s largest industrial groups with stakes in aluminum, energy, construction, agriculture and other sectors. He is also the founder of Russia’s largest charitable organisation Volnoe Delo, reportedly having donated more than $250 million to educational and other causes. Deripaska also headed Russian energy company En+ Group and United Company Rusal, the second-largest aluminium company in the world.
Deripaska is currently being probed by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that raided his home in Washington on October 19. In 2018, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Deripaska and about two dozen other oligarchs and Kremlin officials tied to Putin. Deripaska has been under the scanner over ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted on fraud charges following former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
FBI raids Washington DC home of Putin ally Oleg Deripaska
Born January 2, 1968, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Soviet Russia, Deripaska graduated Moscow State University with a degree in physics. He also obtained a master’s degree from Plekhanov Academy of Economics in 1996.
Deripaska was the richest person in Russia and the 9th richest in the world in 2008, but lost a considerable part of his fortune during the 2007–08 financial crisis. In 2009, Putin visited a stalled cement factory owned by Deripaska and compared tycoons who didn’t pay wages to their workers to cockroaches.
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The Russian president also forced Deripaska to sign a contract promising to pay nearly $1 million in unpaid wages. The relationship has since recovered and Deripaska has been described as “Putin’s favorite industrialist.”
Forbes estimated Deripaska’s wealth to be $4.8 billion as of June 2021.
Deripaska divorced Polina Yumasheva, step-granddaughter of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, in 2017.
