The wealth of Russian billionaires has reached a historic amount, despite the most drastic Western sanctions
The combined wealth of Russian billionaires rose 11 percent to a record $696.5 billion in the past year, despite the war in Ukraine and the toughest Western sanctions ever imposed on a major economy, according to Forbes Russia data.
All of Russia's richest people have ties to the vast reserves of natural resources that the country has exported to global markets in recent decades, and their fortunes have grown as disruptions to trade flows have boosted commodity prices.
Forbes noted that no new names appeared at the top of the 155-person list.
According to the magazine, the leader of the ranking is Alexei Mordașov, the general director of the investment firm Severgroup and CEO of the steel giant Severstal, who is the richest Russian, with a fortune of 37 billion dollars, an increase of 8.4 billion dollars compared to last year's ranking.
Vladimir Potanin, head of Interros and metals producer Nornickel, with a fortune of $29.7 billion, was ranked by Forbes as the second richest man in Russia.
Vagit Alekperov, the former head of Lukoil, ranks third with a fortune of $29.5 billion, and Leonid Mikhelson, CEO of Novatek, and his family rank fourth with a fortune of $28.3 billion, Forbes said.
Yet Russians, once considered among the richest people on the planet, many of whom amassed huge fortunes in the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, have so far amassed smaller fortunes than the top US tech titans.
Elon Musk leads Forbes' global list of the richest people with a fortune of $839 billion. Google's Larry Page is in second place with a fortune of $257 billion.
