Oleg Deripaska: Putin ‘favourite’ with strong ties to UK politics
He is said to be Vladimir Putin’s favourite industrialist, with deep links among the British and Russian establishments. Unlike some of his countrymen, Oleg Deripaska has cultivated influence quietly, preferring to stay out of the spotlight.
Yet the metals magnate has found himself at the heart of a string of high-profile political rows, culminating in Thursday’s decision by the UK government to add him to the list of individuals hit with sanctions in response to the war in Ukraine.
The British rationale is that Deripaska is “a prominent Russian businessman and pro-Kremlin oligarch” who is “closely associated with the government of Russia and Vladimir Putin”, according to his entry on the sanctions list.
“Deripaska is or has been involved in obtaining benefit from or supporting the government of Russia,” it states, by virtue of his interests in the “Russian extractives and energy sectors, sectors of strategic significance to the government of Russia”.
The 54-year-old has previously come under scrutiny for his UK political links, too. In 2008, he became embroiled in a bitter row that exposed his ties to two of the most powerful figures in modern British politics: Lord Mandelson and George Osborne.
It all began when it emerged that Peter Mandelson, then trade secretary, had cut import duties affecting Deripaska’s aluminium empire, Rusal, after being entertained aboard the oligarch’s “superyacht”, the 73m Queen K, off Corfu.
The plot thickened when the financier Nat Rothschild wrote to the Times to say that George Osborne, the Tory shadow chancellor and a fellow alumnus of Oxford’s Bullingdon drinking club, had also met the Russian in Corfu, at the Rothschild family villa.
Osborne, he said, “found the opportunity of meeting with
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