Russian Oligarch-Linked Rusal Invests $200 Million in Kentucky Braidy Plant After McConnell Blocks Sanctions

Russian aluminum giant Rusal announces a $200 million investment in Kentucky’s Braidy Industries aluminum mill project, taking a 40 percent equity stake just three months after the Trump administration lifts sanctions on the company. Rusal was sanctioned in April 2018 because its major controller, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska with close ties to Vladimir Putin, faced Treasury Department accusations of “a range of malign activity around the globe” including interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and meddling in Ukraine. The sanctions lifting in January 2019 followed months of negotiations where Deripaska reduced his formal stake in Rusal’s parent company En+ Group, though questions about actual control persist.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plays a critical role in enabling the deal by blocking Democratic-sponsored legislation that would have maintained sanctions on Rusal. When the House passes a bill to keep sanctions in place, it falls short in the Republican-controlled Senate where McConnell, who has received nearly $1 million from coal industry interests over his 35-year Senate career, accuses Democrats of trying to “politicize” the sanctions. The Braidy Industries project had already received $15 million in direct Kentucky taxpayer investment plus $4 million from the Abandoned Mine Lands fund that McConnell and Representative Hal Rogers announced in 2018. Democratic leaders urge the Treasury Department to investigate Braidy Industries over concerns about “erosion of technological superiority” from Russian ownership.

The investment exemplifies the convergence of foreign influence, political capture, and financial extraction. McConnell blocks funding for Kentucky coal miners’ health care and pensions using the same Appalachian Treasury Department funds that he successfully steers toward the Russian-backed Braidy aluminum plant. The plant never materializes: CEO Craig Bouchard receives a $6 million settlement in 2020 before the company collapses, with assets sold to Steel Dynamics in 2022 for a Mississippi facility instead. The episode demonstrates how political influence can facilitate foreign capital access to U.S. markets and public subsidies through sanctions manipulation, while the same political actors deny support to domestic workers, all within a framework of state-backed crony capitalism that ultimately enriches corporate insiders while delivering nothing for Kentucky communities.