Russian billionaires have lost more than $80 billion of their combined wealth since oligarchs have been targeted with sanctions

• Sanctions have been imposed against Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The sanctions come as Putin has launched an attack against Ukraine.
• Russian billionaires have lost more than $80 billion thus far, CNBC reported Thursday.

Sanctions imposed by governments such as the United States and the European Union against Russian oligarchs have cost the country’s elite more than $80 billion, CNBC reported Thursday.

Russian oligarchs were hit with financial sanctions, or financial consequences imposed by governments or international organizations, as President Vladimir Putin launched an attack against its neighboring country Ukraine.

The $83 billion the billionaires lost since the start of the war accounts for about a third of their wealth, CNBC reported, citing the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Sanctions have resulted in the seizure of at least two Russian billionaires’ yachts. 

On Wednesday, Germany seized one of the world’s largest megayachts belonging to Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov who has stated his support for Putin, according to Forbes.

Another oligarch, Igor Sechin, had his yacht seized by France on Thursday, CNN reported. 

As of Thursday, there are at least five superyachts belonging to billionaires cruising or anchored in the Maldives, which lacks an extradition treaty with the US.

Even those billionaires not targeted by sanctions have had their lives impacted by the war.

One of Russia’s richest billionaires, Vladimir Potanin, who has links to Putin, does not have any sanctions against him as of Thursday; however, he recently stepped down as a trustee for the Guggenheim Museum Wednesday, The New York Times reported.

Likewise, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich announced Wednesday that he’d be selling premier soccer club Chelsea FC and providing the proceeds to “victims of the Ukraine war.”