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Ukraine arrests $50 million worth of Russian oligarch Deripaska’s assets

Raw materials were stored at a Mykolaiv plant previously owned by Deripaska and were prepared for re-exporting to Russia via the EU.

byYuri Zoria

30/01/2025

2 minute read

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Putin’s crony, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Photo: TASS

Ukraine arrests $50 million worth of Russian oligarch Deripaska’s assets

A Ukrainian court has frozen assets worth 2.11 billion hryvnias or approximately $50 million belonging to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Radio Liberty reports. The seized assets comprise a large batch of industrial products and raw materials stored at the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which was previously owned by Deripaska.

Ukraine had previously nationalized Deripaska’s assets worth over $200 million, including the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant and the Hlukhiv Quartzite Quarry. Deripaska, the former head of Russian Aluminum and current chairman of the supervisory board of Basic Element, has been under US sanctions since April 2018 as a person close to Vladimir Putin and financing his projects. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Deripaska was also sanctioned by the EU, UK, and other countries. Subsequently, he was stripped of his Cypriot citizenship, which he had obtained in 2017.

According to Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), the court arrested nearly 500,000 tons of bauxite and alumina that were produced before the Russian invasion.

“These materials were the main component for aluminum production at Oleg Deripaska’s Russian Rusal plants,” the SBU stated.

The SBU reports that Deripaska owned these assets through a controlled commercial entity registered in an EU country. This company acted as a formal customer of the plant’s products for subsequent reexport to Deripaska’s Russian enterprises. Ukrainian law enforcement blocked the raw materials’ shipment in early 2023.

The SBU claims that Deripaska is involved in manufacturing products for Russia’s military-industrial complex, stating his factories “produce components for Iskander ballistic missiles, combat drones, and radar systems.“

In February 2024, the SBU formally notified Deripaska in absentia of his suspect status under seven criminal articles, including financing actions aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order or seizing state power, or changing Ukraine’s state border.

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