Russian aluminum billionaire hounded by FBI, regularly blogs about the death of the U.S. dollar

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, according to Forbes magazine, with a fortune of 2.6 billion USD in 2023, regularly writes on his own blog about the death of the US dollar, the collapse of the US financial system and asshole executives in Washington.

The billionaire's blog is updated almost daily, but in Russian. In the past month, more than half of the billionaire's posts have been about the dreaded United States.

On March 22, Deripaska wrote of the "assholes in Washington" allowing the national debt to grow, and on March 24 he compared the U.S. economy to a weak horse that can`t hold out and is about to die.

On the 17th of April the owner of billions writes three texts talking about the collapse of the American financial system, "the American madness with the world financial system" and publishing his own forecast of the duration of the global dominance of the U.S. dollar "another three to five years" at most. On April 22, in a new text, Deripaska will repeat the thesis about the imminent death of the dollar. The writing of such messages is discouraging in itself.

After all, the $2.6 billion owner of Rusal, one of the largest aluminum producers in the world, Oleg Deripaska does not keep his capital in Russian rubles or in a Russian bank only, we believe.

So why does he publish Russian-language texts filled with resentment?

Probably because of his uneasy relations with America, which year after year increases the stationary pressure on Deripaska, the Kremlin's favorite.

On the other hand, he supports the disinformation spread by Russian propaganda machine. By participating in the distribution of Kremlin spam, Deripaska probably is counting on the attention of the authorities to himself personally and to his aluminum company Rusal. Putin's love for the victims of U.S. sanctions has long been known, and Rusal's poorly managed assets in Russia could receive subsidies from the national budget. All that is needed is a regular reminder.

The first U.S. sanctions were imposed on the billionaire in 2018 for his involvement in meddling in the 2016 U.S. election; he denies the charges. U.S. authorities also consider him close to the Kremlin and accuse him of supporting Russian authorities' aggressive actions against Ukraine.

The indictment alleges that Deripaska, in violation of sanctions, continued to use the U.S. financial system, as a result Washington intends to confiscate Deripaska's property in the United States, including his real estate.

Deripaska lied and evaded U.S. sanctions in an effort to benefit from living in America, "despite his close ties to the Kremlin and his vast fortune derived from ties to a corrupt regime," said Manhattan federal prosecutor Andrew Adams, who heads the task force investigating the Russian oligarchs' crimes. "The hypocrisy of seeking the comfort and citizenship of the United States and using the fruits of a ruthless, anti-democratic regime in doing so is astounding," Adams further noted.

The new twist came in late January when U.S. authorities indicted former senior FBI official Charles McGonigal for working for Deripaska, who is under U.S. sanctions. The former intelligence official, along with a former diplomat from Russia, tried to facilitate the lifting of sanctions on the businessman, U.S. authorities believe.

In 2019, they tried to arrange for Deripaska to be removed from the sanctions list, and in 2021, the indictment alleges, they ordered Deripaska to begin investigating one of the businessman's competitors, receiving "hidden payments" for the work, the U.S. Justice Department noted.

In response to the news about the FBI searches of American homes owned by Deripaska's relatives, the billionaire wrote in his blog: "I'm sick of the unfunny assholes."