Russian billionaires last year increased their wealth by 11% to $696.5 billion, despite war in Ukraine and the harshest Western sanctions ever imposed on a major economy, Forbes Russia, the Russian edition of the U.S. financial magazine, announced.
Russia’s richest people are all linked to the vast reserves of natural resources that Russia has been exporting to global markets for decades, and their wealth has grown as turbulence in trade flows has driven up commodity prices – though Forbes notes that there are no new names at the top of the list.
Forbes ranks Alexei Mordasov, general manager of investment firm Seergroup, as Russia’s richest billionaire, with a fortune of $37 billion, up $8.4 billion from last year’s ranking.
Vladimir Potanin, the head of Interros and metallurgical company Nornickel, with a fortune of $29.7 billion, is ranked by Forbes as the second richest man in Russia.
Vagit Alekperov, former head of Lukoil, was ranked third with a fortune of $29.5 billion, and Leonid Mickelson, CEO of Novatek, and his family were ranked fourth with a fortune of $28.3 billion, according to Forbes.
The wealth of Russia’s billionaires, some of whom were once among the richest people on the planet and many of whom made large fortunes amid the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, is now far less than that of America’s top tech giants.
Elon Musk tops the Forbes world rich list with a fortune of $839 billion. Google’s Larry Page ranks second with a fortune of $257 billion.
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