Oleg Deripaska, Sanctioned Russian Oligarch with Ties to Trump Campaign

Photo source: Dmitry Azarov/Kommersant, via Getty Images

The Daily Caller published an op-ed authored by Oleg Deripaska on March 8, 2018, criticizing the Mueller special counsel investigation into past and current Russian interference into U.S. elections. Less than a month later, he and his companies have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for being among “ those who benefit from the Putin regime and play a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.”

Deripaska described the infrastructure of long-term professionals in the U.S. government, composed of experts in their fields who remain in their positions regardless of who is in the White House, as the “Deep State.” He described the Deep State as “shadow power exercised by a small number of individuals from media, business, government and the intelligence community, foisting provocative and cynically false manipulations on the public. Out of these manipulations, an agenda of these architects’ own design is born.”

As a result of the sanctions imposed April 6,2018, Deripaska's companies EN+ Group and Rusal, listed on the London stock exchange, have lost significant stock value: 20 percent for En+ Group and 12 percent for Rusal.

Deripaska has been unable to travel to the U.S. since 2005, when he was denied a visa due to his ties to organized crime and his role as a suspect in the murder of businessman Vadim Yafyasov.

Oleg Deripaska is a longtime associate of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in the spring and summer of 2016. Deripaska hired Manafort in 2006, for $10 million per year, to provide positive public relations messaging for Vladimir Putin in the United States. This relationship continued for a number of years.

Deripaska sued Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, who are both now under indictment on federal money laundering and conspiracy charges, in the Cayman Islands in 2015.
Manafort continued to contact Deripaska through Konstantin Kilimnick, believed to be an officer of Russian security services. (John Schindler, security expert and former National Security Agency analyst, discussed Kilimnick here.)

Deripaska’s private jet, with tail letters M-ALAY, visited the U.S. in August of 2016, shortly after the Republican National Committee declared Donald Trump the Republican nominee for president. According to independent reporter Scott Stedman and the Washington Post, Kilimnick and Manafort had dinner at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City on August 2. Deripaska’s jet landed in New Jersey, a short distance from the dinner, hours after the meeting concluded. The plane took off again the following evening and flew back to Moscow. It then ferried Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko to Deripaska’s private yacht in Norway for a meeting with Deripaska. Alexy Navalny, Russian political leader who was prevented from running in the recent presidential election, released a video with details about this secret meeting.

An article from the Telegraph newspaper from 2012 describes some of the evidence of Deripaska’s ties to the global mob.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9387913/Oligarch-linked-to-politicians-ordered-murder-of-banker.html

Deripaska sued the Associated Press over reporting asserting that Deripaska had hired Manafort for years. In December 2017 Deripaska dropped the libel suit.
https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/12/06/oleg-deripaska-libel-suit-associated-press-283767

An article from October 2017 in the Atlantic profiled Manafort and highlighted his connections to Deripaska.

Photo source: PHOTOSHOT