Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire, said Russia has opposed Western sanctions levied over the aggression of Ukraine and warned that Western hopes of utilizing such a 20th-century instrument to end the war or trigger government change were doomed to disappointment.
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, is girding the $2.1 trillion economy for a lengthy Ukraine battle and has constantly urged the Western nations for failing to cripple Russia, which is predicted to increase 2.8 percent this year and 2.3 percent next year.
Western expectations of stoking a speedy Russian economic situation have been proven to be incorrect: the world’s second-largest oil exporter has no problem selling its oil on international markets while trade is booming with China – and with some other nations.
Deripaska, a 55-year-old tycoon, told the FT, “I was surprised that private business would be so flexible. I was more or less sure that up to 30 percent of the economy would collapse, but it was way less.”
Deripaska said Russia’s extensive natural resource wealth created it too attractive for many – including China and other nations – to ever abandon, and that Western expectations of utilizing sanctions to change Russian leaders were doomed.
Since last year’s attack on Ukraine, Deripaska himself has been sanctioned by the UK for his alleged links to Russian Putin.
Deripaska was quoted by the FT as saying, “Believing that the sanctions will stop [the war] or create regime change or somehow make us closer to the end of the conflict . . . No. We need to have another solution.”
Deripaska branched out into metals trading as the Soviet Union crushed, creating wealth by purchasing up stakes in aluminum factories.
He established RUSAL, which united the jewels of the Soviet aluminum industry into one holding, in 2000. He was ranked by Russia’s version of Forbes this year as Russian 54th richest man with a worth of $2.5 billion.
Deripaska said he doubted sanctions, which he launched as a tool of the 20th Century, would operate as a wonder weapon in an international world.
In 2018, the United States set sanctions on Deripaska and other significant Russians because it said they were profiting from a Russian state engaged in “malign activities” around the world.
