Alisher Usmanov

Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov (Uzbek: Alisher Burxonovich Usmonov, Russian: Алишер Бурханович Усманов; born 9 September 1953) is a Russian oligarch from Uzbekistan. He is sanctioned by the US, EU, UK, and Ukrainian governments. By 2023, Usmanov had an estimated net worth of $14.5 billion and was among the world's 100 wealthiest people. Usmanov made his wealth after the collapse of the Soviet Union, through metal and mining operations, and investments. He is a shareholder of 49% of Metalloinvest, a Russian industrial conglomerate, which consolidated in 2006 JSC Metalloinvest's assets (Mikhailovsky GOK and Ural Steel) with those of Gazmetall JSC (Lebedinsky GOK and the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant). He owns the Kommersant publishing house. He is also a co-owner of Russia's second-largest mobile telephone operator, MegaFon, and co-owner of Udokan copper which develops one of the largest copper deposits in the world. Usmanov eventually teamed up with Yuri Milner and became the largest investor of Digital Sky Technologies ("DST"). On 16 September 2010, DST changed its name to "Mail.ru Group". He also holds shares of a number of international technology companies. He was the president of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime, the international governing body of the sport of fencing, from 2008 until 2022. On 28 February 2022, in reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union blacklisted Usmanov, imposing an EU-wide travel ban on him and freezing all his assets. On 3 March, the United States imposed similar sanctions on him, with some exceptions for his companies. Usmanov was named in the Official Journal of the European Union, the publication of record of the EU, as a "pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin [who is] one of Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs." Usmanov denied these allegations and filed an appeal in the European Court of Justice in an attempt to lift the sanctions. On 7 February 2024, the appeal was dismissed. His political activity includes the suppression of freedom of speech by taking over the VK social network. He spent six years in a Soviet prison in the 1980s on charges of fraud and embezzlement, but his conviction was later overturned. In 2000, he was eventually rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, which ruled that the case against him was trumped up and no crime had been committed.