Vladimir Potanin, the Russian oligarch whom no one dares to sanction

It seems like a miracle, this 61-year-old bald man who is the The Russian oligarch close to Putin than the United States and European countries deal with kid gloves and they did not punish like other owners of large Russian private companies. His name is Vladimir Potanin and he has a fortune of about 30 billion dollars, The second of Russia.

There is no mystery as to why the West does not punish him with sanctions as ferocious as others. he is the owner of Nickel Norilskthe large Siberian company that produces 15% of the nickel and 40% of the palladium, essential raw materials for manufacture of microchips and automobiles.

There is a risk that sanctioning it could skyrocket world nickel and palladium prices terrible consequences for the automotive and semiconductor industries.

Potanin had only for delicacy to relinquish the executive presidency of the Guggenheim Foundation and its status as patron of the University of Oxford after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on 24 February.

Off the blacklist that has fallen into despair about 40 Russian oligarchsPotanine He continues to enjoy his two super yachts smoothly.

Rising to power in Moscow in the Ministry of Commerce, he supported the Yeltsin government and accompanied the rise of the young Vladimir Putin, which came from the KGB, the Soviet espionage center. Potanin like Putin also comes from a family of the Communist nomenklatura.

Gorbachev took advantage of perestroika start a company with a capital of ten thousand dollars loaned to him by state entities and two years later his brand new Unexismbank became a reference point for the new Russian state and already in 1994 was carrying out activities for two billion dollars.

It was the mastermind of the privatization plan that created the oligarch phenomenon when Russia became a capitalist country.

Potanic’s genius targeted Noris Nickel company, which paid $ 179 million annually and posted revenue of $ 3.3 billion.

Bet on Putin

he warned him Putin was the man of destiny and he was not wrong: the Kremlin “tsar” has ruled since 2000 and made the constitutional changes to be re-elected many more times.

Potanin followed Putin’s dreams. He has created hockey teams in which they both played and it is said that he always managed to score “the boss”. He bought a ski resort in Sochi, a favorite of the Russian president, favored with the enormous political and economic power of him that Sochi, on the Black Sea, hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics.

When the great Russian oligarch Oleg Tinkoff said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “disgusting”, the Kremlin forced him to sell 35% of its prosperous Tinkoff Bank, which Potanic pocketed by paying 3% of its value.

His Interros group bought back the Rosbank it had sold to Société Générale.

According to the “Financial Times” Vladimir Potanic has acquired in recent months holdings in major Russian banks, becoming the main economic ally of the Putin government. It is claimed that since the beginning of the war its legacy has grown by ten billion dollars.

Rome, correspondent

ap