Sweden launched a campaign to protect Putin’s oligarchs

Sweden, together with Anne Lind and then-interior minister Mikael Damberg (S), attempted in 2018 and 2019 to help Putin-like oligarch Oleg Deripaska against US sanctions, according to reports. SVT News.

Through his company Rusal, Oleg Deripaska has ownership links to the Swedish aluminum company Kubal in Sundsvall, with more than 400 employees.

According to the SVT, Deripaska was accused, among other things, of extortion, bribery, his association with organized crime and Russian involvement in the US presidential election in 2016. So the US imposed sanctions on him and his activities.

But Swedish ministers tried to help him avoid sanctions, writing a letter to then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September 2018. They also traveled to the United States and met the head of the sanctions authority.

This was done to save Swedish jobs in Sundsvall, according to SVT.

The US government canceled sanctions against the aluminum group EN + and its subsidiary Rusal, which includes Copal in early 2019.

In early April of this year, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Rusal ended up on the EU sanctions list.

SVT applied to Ann Linde for the campaign aid, but it points to current Commerce Secretary Anna Hallberg (who took office only in the fall of 2019, after the oligarchs’ campaign).

Anna Hallberg says that the attitude towards Russia was different at that time.

– There was a will and hope that you would be able to do business with Russia and that things would go in the right direction, says Anna Hallberg to SVT.