Deripaska’s Rusal Installs Kremlin Fanboy as White House Aims to Lift Sanctions
Putin-friendly oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s aluminum empire is trying to make nice with the U.S. in a bid to get out from sanctions, and that includes trying to clean up its corporate leadership. But the firm has quietly installed a new board chairman who has expressed support for the Russian aggression that got Deripaska sanctioned in the first place.
Last year, the Treasury Department sanctioned Deripaska’s aluminum company, Rusal, in part because of Russia’s occupation of Crimea. Deripaska reduced his holdings in the company in hopes of winning relief from those punishing sanctions. But one of its new leaders has defended Russia’s occupation of Crimea. He’s also become a regular on Russian state TV, pushing a conspiracy theory about chemical weapons in Syria, and asserting that the Russian government couldn’t have been involved in the poisoning of one-time spy Sergei Skripal. That background, which has not been previously detailed, has concerned congressional lawmakers as well as Western intelligence officials.
Jean-Pierre Thomas, the new chairman of Rusal’s board, previously advised former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. More recently, he helped launch a group pushing for international recognition that Russia’s occupation of Crimea is legal (it isn’t). Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the organization, which openly aims to get sanctions against Russia dropped.