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Oleg Deripaska
Status
Born in 1968 (age –). Living in Moscow.
Criminal status: Under US federal indictment since September 2022 for conspiracy to violate and evade US sanctions; personally sanctioned by OFAC since April 2018; also sanctioned by the UK, EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; no personal criminal convictions. In July 2026, the EU General Court rejected his bid to overturn his 2024 and 2025 sanctions relistings.
Summary
Oleg Deripaska built one of the world's largest aluminum empires by emerging from the bloody privatization battles of 1990s Russia — a period of violent industrial consolidation that handed him dominance over UC RUSAL and, later, the broader Basic Element holding company. His EN+ Group operates the world's largest independent hydroelectric power system and uses that energy to run aluminum smelters.
Since April 2018, Deripaska has been personally designated by US Treasury OFAC for acting on behalf of senior Russian government officials and operating in Russia's energy sector. Six governments — the US, UK, EU, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — have sanctioned him.
A 2022 US federal indictment charged him with conspiring to evade those sanctions through an elaborate network of intermediaries. He remains in Russia, beyond the reach of US legal process.
Business Relationships
Deripaska's most documented international business relationship is with Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign manager, involving more than USD 60 million in financial dealings over roughly a decade. That relationship became central to the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
In the Russian metals sector, Vladimir Potanin was a direct competitor during the 1990s privatization era, with their respective industrial empires — Norilsk Nickel and Rusal's aluminum operations — competing for dominance of Russia's natural resource base.
Ownership
Deripaska controls his industrial interests through Basic Element, a private holding company that provides an opaque ownership layer over his diversified assets. The 2018 US sanctions required him to reduce his UC RUSAL stake below 50% and relinquish operational control — conditions that European officials subsequently concluded he violated by continuing to use company resources and employees for personal and Kremlin-linked purposes.
His position in EN+ Group was similarly restructured under the sanctions agreement. UK authorities disqualified him from serving as a corporate officer effective April 2025.
Rusal's continued operations under his influence have drawn fresh domestic regulatory scrutiny: in July 2026, Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service opened an antitrust case against Rusal after the company twice failed to comply with an order to amend a domestic aluminum pricing formula that disadvantaged Russian buyers relative to foreign customers.
Family & Heirs
Deripaska was previously married to Polina Yumasheva, daughter of Boris Yeltsin's former chief of staff. According to the 2022 US federal indictment, he arranged for his girlfriend Ekaterina Voronina to travel to the US while pregnant so their child could obtain US citizenship — a scheme the indictment describes as part of his broader sanctions evasion operation.
Evidence
2009-06-09 - 😈 - Putin publicly shamed Deripaska at Pikalevo factory and forced him to sign agreement paying workers USD 1M in unpaid wages
2010-04-21 - 😇 - Deripaska pledged approximately USD 40 million from Rusal stock windfall to Volnoe Dele Foundation charitable programs
2015-01-19 - 😇 - UC RUSAL opened epidemiology centre in Guinea to fight Ebola virus, with company investment exceeding USD 10 million
2018-04-06 - 😈 - US Treasury OFAC designated Deripaska as a sanctioned Russian oligarch for acting on behalf of the Russian government
2020-12-17 - 😈 - European officials concluded Deripaska continued controlling Rusal in violation of US sanctions agreement requiring him to relinquish operational control
2022-09-29 - 😈 - US DOJ indicted Deripaska for conspiring to violate and evade US sanctions, including a scheme to deliver his child in the US for citizenship
2022-10-11 - 😈 - UK businessman arrested for wire fraud and sanctions evasion to benefit Deripaska, including concealing funding for US properties and artwork
2023-08-14 - 😇 - Volnoe Dele Foundation-funded Phanagoria expedition discovered one of the world's oldest synagogues, supporting archaeology at the site since 2004
2023-12-14 - 😈 - Former FBI counterintelligence chief Charles McGonigal sentenced to 50 months for conspiring to violate Russia sanctions on behalf of Deripaska
2025-12-29 - 😈 - Rusal Sayanal fined RUB 4 million for exceeding permitted air pollution levels at its Sayanogorsk site in Khakassia
2026-02-04 - 😈 - Documents reveal UK politicians sought Russian visa for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein through Deripaska's Kremlin connections
2026-06-23 - 😈 - OFAC imposed USD 7.1 million penalty on Gracetown Inc. for making 24 payments on behalf of sanctioned Deripaska despite explicit prior OFAC notice
2026-07-10 - 😈 - EU General Court rejected Deripaska's application to annul his September 2024, March 2025, and September 2025 sanctions relistings
Analysis
Deripaska built his fortune through the "aluminum wars" of 1990s Russia — a violent period of oligarchic consolidation that the US Treasury associates with extortion, racketeering, and bribery. That foundation has defined his trajectory.
Since the 2018 OFAC designation, court records document a systematic campaign to maintain access to Western assets through a rotating cast of intermediaries: a UK property manager concealing real estate and artwork, a former FBI counterintelligence chief recruited to surveil rival oligarchs, and a New York property company receiving payments despite explicit OFAC notice. In June 2026, Treasury designated a further individual and three companies over an attempted scheme that could have unfrozen more than USD 1.5 billion of his shares through a sham divestment structure — evidence the evasion effort has continued at scale well beyond the original 2022 indictment.
At the operating-company level, Rusal's Sayanal subsidiary was fined for exceeding permitted air pollution levels at its Khakassia site in December 2025, adding an environmental dimension to the pattern of continued Rusal control documented above.
His Volnoe Dele Foundation has funded genuine educational programs and the Phanagoria archaeological expedition for decades, financed seven COVID-19 hospitals across Siberia in 2020, and his aluminum company built a real Ebola response center in Guinea. He has also broken with the Kremlin publicly and repeatedly, calling Russia's invasion of Ukraine "mad" and demanding an unconditional ceasefire — criticism a Russian court responded to by seizing one of his properties.
These are substantive contributions. They do not offset the weight of documented conduct across three branches of the US government, six sanctioning countries, a federal indictment, and a growing docket of enforcement actions against those who help him evade it.
Questions
What does it mean when an oligarch who built wealth through state-adjacent violence runs decades of genuine charitable programs in parallel? Can philanthropy function as accountability when the underlying wealth accumulation and ongoing conduct remain shielded from legal process?
Redemption Arc
Deripaska's public dissent has grown more costly and sustained rather than fading. In 2022 he called on Telegram for peace in Ukraine, and by August 2024 he was demanding an "immediate, unconditional ceasefire" and calling the war "mad" — a Russian court had already responded to his earlier criticism by seizing his luxury hotel complex, and pro-war ideologist Alexander Dugin publicly declared that "he is on the other side."
That stands apart from his 2021 criticism of Russia's poverty statistics, which he quickly walked back under pressure. Still, the enforcement record through 2026 — a new USD 1.5 billion evasion scheme uncovered by Treasury, a lost EU delisting appeal, a fresh antitrust case against Rusal — shows the underlying sanctions-evasion conduct itself has not changed course.