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It goes without saying that Vladimir Putin reigns supreme in Russia, in all ways. He’s the President. He’s the head of the influential Kremlin. He’s also the richest person in Russia with a $70 billion net worth. Yada, yada, yada. That’s old news. We got to wondering, if not for Putin, who would be Russia’s richest person? It turns out that honor goes to billionaire oligarch Vladimir Potanin and his stunning $32 billion net worth, which he amassed during the years of privatization following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back in 1992, he and Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov opened one of the very first private banks in Russia. At the time, then-president Boris Yeltsin had a controversial program called “loans-for-shares,” which allowed Potanin and Prokhorov to do very well for the balance of the 1990s. They acquired assets in nickel, oil, shipping, and steel. Today, Potanin is the CEO of Norilsk Nickel.

Vladimir Potanin has always been a member of the elite of Russian society. He was born in 1961 in Moscow to a high-ranking family. He studied international economic relations in college and went to work for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, just like his dad before him. He made a lot of connections working for the government. He left the Ministry of Foreign Trade in 1990 during the downfall of the USSR. He had $10,000 in capital and launched a foreign trade financial consulting agency called Interros VEA. Two years later, he and Prokhorov became two of the first Russian citizens to open a private bank. The two acquired many businesses in the ensuing years, including Norilsk Nickel, a huge nickel mining conglomerate, which was auctioned off by the government in 1995. The company had $400 million in revenue a year at the time but was auctioned off for just $170 million. Potanin and Prokhorov won the auction with a bid of $170.1 million. At the time, Potanin was also the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the privatization efforts.

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Norilsk Nickel’s revenues exploded over the next decade. When Potanin and Prokhorov took the company public, they became even wealthier. With that newfound wealth, they expanded their holdings into real estate, media, and retail. The two businessmen went their separate ways in 2007, when Prokhorov left to found his own business. Potanin got hit with another shock the following year when the global financial crisis decimated his income, decreasing it to just $2 billion. Potanin rebuilt his wealth over the next six years to $15 billion by 2014. But his wealth was about to take another hit.

Vladimir met his now ex-wife Natalia in school. They fell in love, got married, and had three children. By all accounts, they were a happy family – until he suddenly filed for divorce in November 2013, after 30 years of marriage. To make matters worse, Vladimir asked the court to make the divorce retroactive to January 16, 2007. According to him, that was the exact day that he decided the marriage wasn’t going well.

The day that Vladimir surprised Natalia with the divorce was a normal one, right up until that point. Natalia and Vladimir were at the dinner table with their sons, planning a trip to the U.S. with their youngest son, Vasily, who was going to be enrolling in an American school. They were discussing exams and tutors. They talked about what movies to see and musicals to go to while in the U.S. It was, by all accounts, a normal dinner table conversation. After dinner, Vasily went to bed and Vladimir left the room for a moment. When he returned, he handed Natalia divorce papers and told her that he was fed up and wanted a divorce. She was in shock from the surprise of it. She thought he was joking. That was the last time she spoke to the man she had loved, lived with, and raised three children with for 30 years.

Just like that Vladimir disappeared from Natalia and her sons’ lives. Natalia took Vasily to New York to get ready for school in September. While she was gone, Vladimir had the family home torn down. Natalia had a lot to deal with. Vladimir not only robbed her of a home, but he immediately cut off her access to the couple’s bank accounts. Then she found out about his request to backdate the divorce. This, of course, was a power play to protect his assets. That date in 2007 was before Vladimir and his business partner, Mikhail Prokhorov, split and divided their company.

Despite Russia being a community property country, the court ruled for Vladimir and declared the termination date of the marriage was in 2007, not 2013. Natalia presented a ton of photos showing that they were living together, going on vacation together, living a normal life up until that evening when Vladimir filed for divorce. The court chose to rule for President Vladimir Putin’s friend. Funny how that happens in Russia, isn’t it?

When it came time to offer Natalia a settlement – money that would support his children – he didn’t offer a single penny. This man with a net worth of $14 billion at the time kicked his wife and son out of their home and refuses to talk to them. Natalia took him to court and ultimately walked away with a $41.5 million settlement.

As it turns out, Vladimir had been having an affair with an employee 15 years his junior and had fathered her child. He married her in 2014.

This post first appeared on celebritynetworth.com

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