The company was the first major corporation to resist the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian oil giant Lukoil’s chairman Vaguit Alekperov has resigned, the company said on Thursday, a week after the billionaire was added to the list of UK-sanctioned Russian figures. “Loukoil’s chairman and board member, Vaguit Alekperov, has announced his decision to step down from (his) functions,” read a press release from the number two in Russia’s oil sector, which is also listed on the London Stock Exchange. Loukoil, a private group, called for a quick halt to the Russian offensive in Ukraine in early March, a week after Russian forces invaded Ukraine and as the West tightened sanctions.
Also readRussian oil giant Loukoil calls for an end to the war in Ukraine
At $10.5 billion, Vaguit Alekperov, 71, is the 10th richest in Russia, according to Forbes magazine’s Russian edition. The United States has already imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, while the European Union, much more dependent on Russian hydrocarbons, is considering it.
Many oligarchs and senior Western officials have been sanctioned by the West and their assets frozen, but Vaguit Alekperov is the first head of a group of this rank in the hydrocarbon sector to step down. Sanctions against another billionaire, Roman Abramovich, prompted him to put up for sale the Chelsea club he bought in 2003.