Russia’s richest lose $102 billion in wealth after a year of war

The 23 Russian billionaires, who were among the 500 richest people in the world, had a combined net worth of $339 billion ($513.5 billion) as of February 23, 2022, the day before Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine U.S. dollar).

A year later, with the conflict far from resolved, Russia’s rich and powerful have lost $67 billion ($101.5 billion) of their collective wealth, a 20 percent drop that’s more than four times that size is like the rest of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Biggest loser: Alexey Mordashov, the main owner of Severstal PJSC, one of Russia’s largest steelmakers. Since the Russian invasion, he has seen $6.7 billion wiped from his fortune. With an estimated US$19.8 billion, he is still the fourth richest person in the country.

The second biggest drop belongs to another steel magnate, Vladimir Lisin. The chairman of Novolipetsk Steel PJSC lost $5.8 billion last year, reducing his fortune to $20.5 billion.

In contrast, Andrey Guryev has gained $2.1 billion since the war began thanks to a surge in the share price of PhosAgro PJSC, one of Europe’s largest producers of phosphate fertilizers. He is the founder of the company and his family is the largest shareholder.

Loading

However, an analysis of Russia’s ultra-rich suggests that the multiple rounds of scattergun sanctions by the US, UK and European Union have had limited long-term effects. In fact, the billionaires’ collective net worth bottomed out just weeks after the invasion, falling by $92 billion to $248 billion on March 9, 2022.

Of course, the sanctions have hit other pain points.

Roman Abramovich was forced to put his prized possessions up for sale in London, including Chelsea Football Club. Mikhail Fridman said he was “in shock” after his lawyer told him sanctions meant travel bans and frozen accounts. Viktor Vekselberg had his $90 million, 255-foot superyacht Tango confiscated by Spain in April at the behest of the United States.