The Ledger / Andrei Kozitsyn
Andrei Kozitsyn
◼ Origin
Andrei Kozitsyn is the CEO and co-owner of UMMC (Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company), one of Russia's largest copper producers. He joined the company in its founding years in the late 1990s after the Soviet-era industrial privatizations and has led it ever since. UMMC operates copper smelters, mines, and processing facilities across the Ural region of Russia, with the flagship Karabash copper smelter in Chelyabinsk Oblast being among its oldest and largest operations. Kozitsyn is also a major investor in non-ferrous metals, construction, and agricultural businesses. He has maintained a low public profile by Russian oligarch standards and has not faced Western sanctions as of 2025.
◼ Self-Made Verdict — PARTIAL
Kozitsyn co-built UMMC from the privatized remnants of Soviet industry in the 1990s, which required genuine entrepreneurial and managerial effort. But the underlying assets — Soviet copper mines and smelters — were acquired at distorted post-Soviet prices through opaque privatization processes, making this a partial self-made case at best.
◼ Documented marks
01
The Karabash copper smelter in Chelyabinsk Oblast, operated by UMMC subsidiary Karabashmed, was declared by the Blacksmith Institute in 1998 to be one of the ten most polluted places on Earth; decades of sulfur dioxide emissions left surrounding hills barren and contaminated local rivers with heavy metals
02
Russian environmental enforcement agencies fined UMMC subsidiaries multiple times for air and water pollution violations at the Karabash smelter; the smelter operated for decades without completing required environmental remediation commitments
03
UMMC is one of Russia's largest private industrial employers, with operations spanning copper mining, zinc, gold, and construction materials; the company has been linked to the broader circle of Ural-region oligarchs who consolidated Soviet industrial assets in the 1990s
No inheritance, or primary accounts documented for this billionaire yet.
◼ List of charges
Total sentence
0–0 years
That is
0.0–0.0 life sentences
(using 78 years as one life)
At $1 million per day
Andrei Kozitsyn's fortune would last 9 years
0.1 lifetimes of luxury — before running out.
These are moral charges, not legal ones. The actual legal system has not — and will not — bring them.
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