Putin’s incredible wealth is likely to insulate him from the immediate impact of sanctions put in place by the United States and others.
QUICK FACTS:
- Estimates put Putin’s net worth around $200 billion, which makes him richer than Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.
- Because of his monstrous fortune, according to the International Business Times, sanctions might not be effective fast enough to assist the nation of Ukraine in its national defense.
- Additionally, the Panama and Pandora Papers leaks have indicated that the Russian officials who maintain close ties with Putin have also amassed fortunes stretching into hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Fortune.
PUTIN’S SUBSTANTIAL FORTUNE:
- IBT reported that the Kremlin official disclosures state that the Russian president earns about $140,000 in income and owns three cars, a trailer, an 800-square-foot apartment, and uses a 1,600-square-foot apartment in Moscow.
- Russian political analyst and Putin critic Stanislav Belkovsky says that Putin’s huge fortune appears to be tied to his stakes in Russian oil and gas companies.
- However, a Swedish economist thinks the Russian ruler might be worth much more and that those in his closest circle hold between $500 million and $2 billion each on behalf of the Russian president.
BACKGROUND:
- Exiled Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev claims that the entire fortune belongs to the nation and that attempts to calculate Putin’s worth are futile.
- That hasn’t stopped nations around the world from putting sanctions on Russia, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and others.
