Caught up in the latest round of US financial sanctions against Russian oligarchs close to Putin and “the Kremlin’s malign agenda” is Oleg Deripaska. Known to Brits for his chumocracy at one point with Peter Mandelson, then in the EU, and George Osborne, former Chancellor, he more recently paid former Trump campaign director Manafort millions to create a confidential strategy plan for the Putin regime. Treasury’s sanctions announcement described Deripaska as a thug, repeating allegations that he had “bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman and had links to a Russian organized crime group.”
The new sanctions were mandated by veto-proof legislation passed last year by representatives and senators from both parties who didn’t entrust the matter to the discretion of Trump, who signed the measure reluctantly. The sanctions freeze any assets the sanctionees hold in the U.S. and bar Americans from dealing with them.
Deripaska born 2 January 1968, was brought up in tough conditions by farming Cossack grandparents, started work at 11, had an aptitude for maths and physics, graduated with honours from Moscow University and after the collapse of the Soviet Union started a metal trading company and bought shares in an aluminium company.
A business magazine described the ‘aluminium wars’ of the late 1990s as ‘a bloody period in the country’s post-communist asset grab from which a few dozen oligarchs emerged – and several potential oligarchs lost their lives.’ It is estimated 100 people were killed and Deripaska rose to the top of the pile. ‘With allegations of organised crime and multiple murders apparently dogging his every move, his wealth grew over the next ten years into one of the largest fortunes in Russia.’
He has an ambitious Sun Mercury in Capricorn square a forced-to-be-self-reliant Saturn in Aries; and Sun trine Jupiter in Virgo. He has Pluto (Uranus) in Virgo sextile Neptune and inconjunct Mars in Aquarius. Mars Pluto will make him no slouch when it comes to will-power, ruthlessly applied with Pluto involved, aggressively self-determined and uncompromising with Mars in Aquarius.
He looks seriously unhappy from here on in through to late 2019 with tr Neptune conjunct his Mars/Saturn and opposition his Jupiter/Pluto midpoint; with a major irritation come July, returning into 2019. He’ll rebound by 2020 but won’t be in good humour till then.
Pic: Dzinko