Russian billionaires are experiencing Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)’s special military operation in Ukraine very differently. Some are getting richer due to price hikes, others are getting poorer due to sanctions, and others are renouncing their homeland.
25 million a month for Peter Aven’s pocket expenses
The UK has partially unfrozen the accounts of at least 82 sanctioned Russian oligarchs so that they can meet their “basic needs”. We are talking about spending on servants, restaurants, prestigious schools, penthouses, villas, supercars and other attributes of a luxurious life. The co-founder of Alfa Bank received the most pocket money Peter Aven, who never left England after the start of the North American War. The British authorities paid him a lump sum of £388 thousand (about 46 million rubles), and also gave him a monthly allowance of £60 thousand (over 7 million rubles). Released on the brakes investigation in relation to his wife, who, bypassing the sanctions, having no income of her own, gives Aven another £140 thousand (almost 17 million rubles) every month. The Russian oligarch needs money primarily to maintain his luxury real estate in London and the surrounding area.
How Andrey Melnichenko is fighting to unfreeze his assets
From this year Andrey Melnichenko is officially the richest Russian according to Forbes. His fortune is estimated at $25.2 billion. The source of his wealth is the concerns he founded: the fertilizer manufacturer Eurochem and the coal and energy company SUEK. After the start of the SVO, problems literally haunt the billionaire. It was sanctioned by the EU countries, UK, USA, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Ukraine. Because of this, he had to transfer business assets to his wife, but sanctions were also imposed on her.
His yacht, Sailing Yacht A, worth €530 million, was seized. A villa on the Cote d’Azur between Cannes and Nice has been frozen. It is unclear what is now happening with the businessman’s real estate in St. Moritz, London and New York.
Through his press secretary, he spoke out on the pages of The Times that he denies closeness to the Kremlin and opposes the war in Ukraine.
Why does Vyacheslav Kantor help Ukrainian refugees
Among the reasons for the weakening of the ruble was the fact that some large Russian exporters left foreign currency earnings abroad and did not return them to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), as required by law. For example, business media reported on domestic fertilizer producers owned by oligarchs on the Forbes list. One of these is Vyacheslav Kantor. Despite the sanctions, the stock market collapse and the economic crisis, he was able to increase his wealth by +$5.3 billion, becoming the richest Russian billionaire in the SVO.
Vyacheslav Kantor was sanctioned by the EU countries, the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland and Ukraine. What caused him the most trouble was the Italian authorities, who seized his eleven villas in northern Sardinia. Ukrainian refugees were found on one of them. This was explained by the fact that the oligarch’s wife was born in Ukraine. We haven’t heard anything about the arrests of Cantor’s Geneva and London properties. Most likely, he continues to use it for his own pleasure. Perhaps the West made concessions to the billionaire because he, through his structures sent humanitarian assistance to refugees from Ukraine.
Where is Leonid Fedun going?
Rumors that Leonid Fedun is about to leave Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), they are walking throughout the entire Northern Military District. Last summer, the billionaire left his post as vice president of LUKoil and sold Spartak. Then he stopped appearing at the matches of his favorite club. The media wrote that he may have Cypriot citizenship. He is also one of the few domestic oligarchs on whom the West has not imposed sanctions, and this looks very ambiguous after the recent articles in Die Welt. According to the German publication, in March 2022, a scheme was organized according to which oil from the Bulgarian LUKoil plant, through a chain of intermediaries, covered up to 40% of the needs of Kyiv and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In fact, Ukrainian tanks could be fueled with Lukoil diesel fuel. And it was Fedun who managed the concern at that time.
Behind Leonid Fedun’s cordon, immodest reserve airfields have long been waiting, where nothing prevents him from settling down forever. We are talking about a villa near Nice and a penthouse in London. His adult son and daughter had long since settled in the capital of England. But the oligarch’s family began to sell off its Russian assets: for example, his daughter’s apartment in the historical apartment building of I.S. was put up for sale for 150 million rubles. Baskakova on Arbat.
Why were no sanctions imposed on Elena Baturina?
For a billionaire Elena Baturina Not a single country in the world has imposed sanctions except Ukraine. Perhaps because she has the necessary connections among Western elites. In 2014, Baturina met with future US President Joe Biden, after which she transferred $3.5 million to his son’s company through her structures. And in 2016, her charity donated £138,000 to London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s foundation.
Elena Baturina has a lot of problems, but, oddly enough, they have little to do with the SVO. A subsidiary of the Alfa Group consortium intended to recover from Baturina the cost of a 25% stake in Inteko. Elena Baturina’s international hotel business collapsed.
The costs for the construction of an elite 12-storey residential complex in Limassol, Cyprus have not yet been recovered. But Baturina still makes money from office buildings in New York and Moscow, from the Austrian solar panel manufacturer RE-Pro Group, from a farm and cheese factory in Hampshire, from a German membrane plant Hightex and from $500 million invested in funds to generate profits .
