Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has spoken with unusual frankness about Russia’s two-and-a-half year war with Ukraine, calling it “mad” and criticising Russia’s vast military spending in an interview with Japanese publication Nikkei Asia.
“If you want to stop the war, first you need to stop the fire,” Deripaska told Japan’s flagship financial newspaper, calling for an “immediate, unconditional ceasefire" in Ukraine.
Describing the “vital importance” of Russian trade ties with Asian countries for the sanctioned Russian economy, Deripaska called the country’s continued ability to export its products to India and China a “lifeline” and credited skyrocketing trade links between Russia and Asia with preventing a “bigger collapse” in the Russian economy.
When asked about his current relationship with the Kremlin, Deripaska, who has long been rumoured to be close to Vladimir Putin, said that there had been “no changes”, adding simply: “They don’t touch me, and we don’t touch politics.”
Deripaska, who has an estimated net worth of €2.7 billion according to Forbes, initially spoke out against the war in Ukraine just weeks after it began, writing on his Telegram channel on 2 April 2022 that “this madness, as it seems to me, needs to end now."
However, since the Russian authorities seized a hotel complex he owned in the Black Sea resort of Sochi later that year, Deripaska has been far less outspoken in public.
Deripaska is the founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal, its parent company En+ Group and Basic Element, one of Russia’s largest industrial conglomerates. He has been under US sanctions since 2018, and was sanctioned by the UK and Australia in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
