The 2026 World's Billionaires List, which was published by Forbes Magazine on Tuesday, includes 14 new Russian billionaires, bringing the country’s total to 149 and with a new name topping the list.
According to Forbes, of the 14 new Russian billionaires added to its annual list, 10 were self-made, while four inherited wealth generated during Russia’s post-Soviet privatisation spree in the early 1990s.
Seven of the new billionaires are involved in agriculture and the food industry, the richest of whom, Alexander Tkachyov, a former agriculture minister and governor of the Krasnodar region who is now the majority shareholder in the company Agrocomplex, has been sanctioned by the EU, UK, Canada, and Australia for his support for Russian actions in Ukraine.
Agrocomplex, which was formerly controlled by Tkachyov’s father, acquired large quantities of land during his tenure as Russian agriculture minister between 2015–2018, a position which he denied created a conflict of interest. According to The Wall Street Journal, in the first year of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Agrocomplex seized over 1,500 square kilometers of farmland in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
At first glance, 2026 marks the fourth year that the number of Russian businessmen on the list has grown, however, confusion over the nationalities of Russian billionaires in the 2025 list meant the initial report including 146 Russian businessmen had to be amended to include an additional 24 names including Alisher Usmanov, the founder of global conglomerate USM, who had been listed as Uzbek.
At the top of the list of richest Russians in 2026, overtaking Lukoil’s Vagit Alekperov, who was the richest Russian in the world for the previous two years, was steel tycoon Alexey Mordashov, with an estimated net worth of $37 billion (€31.8 billion). Once again, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk topped the global ranking by a considerable margin with a net worth of $839 billion (€724.7 billion).
