Thirty of 311 Russian billionaires on the Forbes list, or 9%, faced nationalisation, attempted nationalisation or forced asset sales on non-market terms between 2014 and 2025, according to The Bell, citing research by the Cedar analytical centre.

As followed by bne IntelliNews, amid a large-scale redistribution of wealth in Russian elites following the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, a number of major assets privatised in the 1990s have been de-facto renationalised by the state.

Prosecutor General’s lawsuits have been the main legal tool of the nationalisation.

The research cited by The Bell estimated the total value of assets targeted by the Prosecutor General reaching RUB5 trillion ($55bn) including RUB2.6 trillion owned by Forbes billionaires. 

The study reportedly found that if the sample is narrowed to the 2021 to 2023 Forbes lists, 25 out of 204 billionaires, or 12%, were affected by state actions. 

The number of asset confiscations rose from 17 in 2022 to 40 in 2023, 37 in 2024 and nearly 70 in 2025, while the most common grounds for lawsuits were violations of anti-corruption legislation, 67 cases out of 170, and the revision of transactions deemed illegal, 21 cases.

The largest losses, estimated at RUB500bn, were reportedly incurred by KDV Group owner Denis Shtengelov, who, together with his father, was recognised as an “extremist association” that turned the company “into an instrument of personal enrichment and inflicting strategic defeat on Russia”. 

Former co-owners of Domodedovo airport Dmitry Kamenshchik and Valery Kogan ranked second and third, with their nationalised asset sold at the end of January to a structure linked to Sheremetyevo. 

State corporations including Gazprom, Rosatom, Rostec, Transneft, FSUE NAMI, VTB and Rosselkhozbank, as well as long-standing associates of President Vladimir Putin, such as the Kovalchuk, Rotenberg and Patrushev families, reportedly emerged as the main beneficiaries, receiving assets in more than 90% of cases.

Only five defendants successfully challenged asset seizures, the most prominent being Andrey Melnichenko in the case of SibEco, who reportedly reached a settlement after publicly criticising the war and donating an undisclosed sum to social charity. 

Another successful cases involved Heidelberg Cement, companies linked to former Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov, patents held by a Ryazan defence industry employee, and a group of small real estate and construction firms in Sochi, with no broader forecast or outlook provided in the study.