Ukraine nationalizes Deripaska’s resources used to produce weapons
7 April 2025 23:31
The High Anti-Corruption Court has upheld the claim of the Ministry of Justice to recover products and raw materials owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The total value of these assets is estimated at over UAH 2 billion. This was reported by the press service of the Security Service of Ukraine.
“We are talking about more than 550 thousand tons of bauxite and alumina produced in Ukraine before the outbreak of a full-scale war. Since then, they have been stored in the warehouses of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which used to belong to a Russian. The total value of the nationalized assets is over UAH 2 billion,” the statement said.
According to the SBU, these products were used at the oligarch’s Russian factories to smelt aluminum, which is used to make components for ballistic missiles, combat drones and radar systems.
As a reminder, Deripaska is a member of Putin’s inner circle and is one of the main “sponsors” of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
According to the case file, the nationalized bauxite and alumina belonged to him through a controlled company registered in one of the EU countries. This commercial structure acted as a formal customer of the Mykolaiv plant’s products for further re-export to Russian enterprises.
In early 2023, Ukrainian law enforcement officers exposed the fraud and blocked the shipment of these raw materials.
Subsequently, the SBU investigators served the oligarch with a notice of suspicion in absentia under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including financing of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. The SBU’s pre-trial investigation of Deripaska has been completed, and the indictment was sent to court in January 2025.
As you know, in February 2023, based on the materials of the Security Service and the State Bureau of Investigation, the High Anti-Corruption Court upheld the claim of the Ministry of Justice to transfer enterprises owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to the state ownership of Ukraine.
The court’s decision concerned Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, as well as the Hlukhiv Quartzite Quarry, Khust Quarry, and Zhezheliv Quarry mining companies.
The value of the property transferred to Ukraine at that time was over UAH 10 billion.
Who is Deripaska?
Oleg Deripaska is a Russian oligarch, billionaire, owner of the Basic Element holding, head of the Russian Aluminum, Siberian Aluminum, and Sayanogorsk Aluminum Plant. In 2008, his fortune was estimated at $28 billion, but in 2020 it was only $2.3 billion. Since April 2018, he has been under US sanctions, and since 2022, he has been under sanctions from other Western countries due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, he called for peace and early peace talks with Ukraine.
Recently, Ukraine announced suspicion of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and detained two of his Ukrainian top managers who supplied Russia with raw materials for the production of Iskander ballistic missiles.
More than a year ago, Ukraine seized oligarch Deripaska’s property. The seized property includes 12 land plots, a seaport complex, apartments, administrative buildings, production workshops, 46 vehicles, and 240 pieces of special equipment.
