Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska is a Russian oligarch and billionaire. Deripaska enriched himself on previously state-owned assets that were privatized in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is the founder of Basic Element, one of Russia's largest industrial groups, and Volnoe Delo, Russia's largest charitable foundation. He was the president of En+ Group, a Russian energy company, and headed United Company Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world, until he quit both roles in 2018.
Deripaska in 2020
Vladimir Putin and Deripaska, 19 March 2002
Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property.
Putin (left), with Mikhail Khodorkovsky (right) in December 2002. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed the following year.
Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg in 2015
Putin (left) with Oleg Deripaska (right) in the Kremlin in March 2002
Putin (left), with Petr Fradkov (right) in the Kremlin in May 2019