Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed on Thursday that Moscow risks running out of cash unless allies come to Moscow’s rescue to cushion the impact of severe coordinated sanctions imposed by Europe and the US. “There will be no money already next year,” notedDeripaska, a prominent Russian industrialist, in a remark made at an economic conference in Siberia.
“We will need foreign investors,” he said, adding that Russia “has already begun to shake off us [businessmen].” A Putin aide said the Russian billionaire is pressuring Moscow to halt the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24 last year. Deripaska, a Putin ally who set up businesses in the aluminium industry, spoke highly of how the war and Western sanctions threatened his fortunes. He, as well as other prominent oligarchs such as Mikhail Fridman, PyotrAven, Oleg Tinkov, and Aleksey Mordashov, were targeted by Western sanctions. Deripaska was once the richest person in Russia and ranked ninth worldwide in terms of his wealth in 2008. According to an estimate, his wealth is $2.9 billion.