Forbes: Ukraine’s 20 wealthiest people lose over $20 billion in 2022 due to Russia’s full-scale invasion

Russia’s all-out invasion drastically reduced the net worth of Ukraine’s wealthiest, according to a new report by Forbes magazine as Russia destroyed plants and factories shrinking Ukriane’s economy by a third. Altogether, Ukraine’s 20 richest people are worth $22.5 billion, down by over $20 billion from February 2022, Forbes Ukraine reported on Dec. 27. In recent years, the oligarchs who control vital industries such as machinery, raw material, banking, agriculture, and chemical, invariably found themselves at the top of annual financial ratings but 2022 has been made different due to the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov kept first place in the ranking, just like last year.  However, Akhmetov who owns DTEK energy company and Metinvest steel and mining conglomerate lost $9.3 billion due to Russia’s all-out war in his native Donbas. His net worth is now estimated at $4.4 billion. The tycoon’s long list of painful business losses includes the Mariupol-based Azovstal steel plant, one of the largest in Europe, and Ukraine’s second-largest metallurgical enterprise Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. Many of Akhmetov’s possessions were turned into warzones and were eventually destroyed by the Russians. Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK, which controls a third of the energy market and is responsible for mining the majority of the country’s coal, is a part of Akhmetov’s SCM Group. As of early December, the company said its enterprises were attacked 18 times, 20 people were injured, and three were killed, according to Forbes. In June Akhmetov (pictured above) filed a lawsuit against Moscow in the European Court of Human Rights, with the total amount of the claim may reach $20 billion. As Ukraine’s established tycoons faced substantial losses,  tech entrepreneurs have gained positions among the country’s wealthiest. Maksym Lytvyn and Oleksii Shevchenko, co-founders of the popular grammar-checking tool Grammarly, Ukraine’s most expensive tech startup, have entered Forbes’ list of Ukraines richest people in second and third place. The assets of each are now worth $2.3 billion. The Ukraine-born techies became billionaires after a $200 million investment deal catapulted Grammarly’s value to $13 billion. Forbes noted that the change in the rating shows the primary trend in Ukraine’s economy that “the days of old-school businessmen are passing.” “Their losses are disproportionately larger than their assets. There are already six entrepreneurs in the top 20 who made their fortunes in the knowledge economy almost without intersecting with the Ukrainian state,” the magazine said. Grammarly co-founders are followed in the list by oligarchs Victor Pinchuk and Kostyantyn Zhevago, whose net worth is estimated at $2.2 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively. Last year, Pinchuk, who holds massive assets in the ironworks industry and media, was ranked second-richest Ukrainian, and Zhevago, the majority owner of London-listed Ferrexpo ore mining group, was named third. In total, Forbes analyzed the net worth of 129 Ukrainian businessmen who were included among the top 100 richest in the past two years.  The magazine noted that some of the billionaires could have gotten into the 2022 ranking based on their net worth but were excluded from the list due to loss of citizenship. For example, Ihor Kolomoiskyi, who last year ranked fourth in the ranking valued at $1.8 billion, was allegedly stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by President Volodymyr Zelensky in July. The list of the 20 richest Ukrainians include: Top-20 in 2022  Rinat Akhmetov Main asset: SCM, Metinvest, DTEKNetworth: $4.4 billion Maksym LytvynMain asset: GrammarlyNetworth: $2.3 billion Oleksii ShevchenkoMain asset: GrammarlyNetworth: $2.3 billion  Victor PinchukMain asset: Interpipe GroupNetworth; $2.2 billion Kostyantyn ZhevagoFerrexpo$1.4 billion Oleksandr and Halyna HerehaEpicenter-K$1.2 billion Vlad YatsenkoRevolut$1.1 billion Vadym NovinskyMetinvest (24%)$1 billion Hennadii BoholiubovPrivat Group$1 billion Serhii TihipkoTAS, CreditMarket, Universal Bank$870 million. Maks PoliakovIT, space, dating$800 million  Petro PoroshenkoRoshen$730 million Yurii KosiukMHP$520 million Mykola ZlochevskyiBurisma$500 million Vitalii KhomutynnykUkrnaftoburinnya$490 million Andrii VerevskyiKernel$400 million Taras KytsmeiSoftServe $360 million Stepan Chernovetskyi IT, real estate$350 million Oleksandr YaroslavskyiDCH$340 million Oleksandr KonotopskyiAjax Systems$320 million  The post Forbes: Ukraines 20 wealthiest people lose over $20 billion in 2022 due to Russias full-scale invasion appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.

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