Meet Russia’s richest billionaire who toppled a fertiliser tycoon on Forbes list.

Vagit Alekperov replaced Andrei Melnichenko as Russia’s richest billionaire, according to the Forbes Billionaires List 2024. Russian industraliast Vagit Alekperov has become the richest billionaire in the country, according to the recently-released Forbes Billionaires List 2024. He is the former president of oil major Lukoil and has a net worth of $28.6 billion. Alekperov, 73, replaced Russian fertiliser magnate Andrei Melnichenko who was the country’s richest person. Melnichenko’s net worth has fallen from $25.2 billion to $21.1 billion, pushing him to the seventh spot on the country’s billionaire list.Russia’s richest people added $72 billion to their fortunes over the past year, taking their collective wealth to $577 billion, Forbes said on Tuesday. In 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Forbes had estimated the total wealth of Russian billionaires at $606 billion. High commodity prices in the past two years and Russia’s war-focused economic growth stifling the impact of Western sanctions have aided a recovery towards that figure. Many Russian billionaires fell under Western sanctions as the West sought to punish President Vladimir Putin and those deemed close to him for launching the war in Ukraine. Their total wealth dropped to $353 billion in 2022.