Dmitry Pumpyansky: TMK’s Former Owner, His Sanctions and the EU Court Cases

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Photo: Igor Gordeev (Игорь Гордеев), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sanctions status — checked 18 October 2026

Listed by: US (OFAC SDN) · UK (OFSI) · EU

This person appears on the sanctions lists named above. Other countries are covered in the sanctions section below. Date of birth used for identification: 1964-03-22. Checked against the OFAC SDN list, the UK OFSI consolidated list and the EU consolidated list. Sanctions lists change without notice — verify against the primary source before relying on this.

Current figure: Forbes puts Dmitry Pumpyansky’s net worth at $3 billion as of 18 October 2026 (Forbes profile). Estimates are revised continuously and Forbes and Bloomberg frequently disagree.

Dmitry Pumpyansky built the Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), a Russian maker of steel pipes for the oil and gas industry, and was president of Sinara Group. In March 2022, as the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Switzerland sanctioned him, he gave up his posts and his status as beneficial owner of both groups. The United States followed in August 2022. His fight against the EU listing has produced mixed results: the courts upheld the original listing, but the EU General Court annulled several later decisions to keep him on the list. As of October 2026 he is still listed by the EU.

  • Born: 22 March 1964 in Ulan-Ude, Buryatia (OFAC, Forbes Russia)
  • Education: Kirov Ural Polytechnic Institute, 1986; doctorate in economics
  • Known for: founder and longtime chairman of TMK; former president of Sinara Group
  • Sanctions as of October 2026: European Union (since 9 March 2022), United Kingdom (since 15 March 2022), Switzerland (since March 2022), Canada (since April 2022), United States (since August 2022)

Career and TMK

Pumpyansky was born in 1964 in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia (Moskovsky Komsomolets, Forbes Russia). He graduated from the Kirov Ural Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg in 1986 (Forbes Russia, TMK annual report 2020). TMK’s annual report says he holds a candidate’s degree in engineering and a doctorate in economics. Forbes writes that he started out as a trader (Forbes). From 1991 to 2002 he held management posts at the Verkh-Isetsky, Chelyabinsk and Sinarsky pipe plants in the Urals (Kommersant, Forbes).

TMK was created in April 2001, when the MDM group bought two pipe plants. In autumn 2001 the Sinarsky plant, which Pumpyansky ran, joined the company. Pumpyansky became its general director and received 34 percent of its shares. In January 2003 he bought the 33 percent stake held by MDM and raised his holding to 67 percent (Kommersant, 2003). Forbes dates the buyout of his former partners to 2006 (Forbes). He was TMK’s general director until 2005 and chaired its board of directors from 2005 (Kommersant, TMK annual report 2020). He was also president of Sinara Group, and until March 2022 he indirectly controlled 97.99 percent of Sinara Bank (TMK annual report 2020, Interfax). In 2019 he handed the chair of Sinara’s board to his son Alexander (Forbes Russia).

According to Sinara, he and his son left the boards of Sinara Group, Bank Sinara and STM from 9 March 2022, and he resigned as Sinara’s president. Neither of them remained a beneficiary of the group (Interfax, 11 March 2022). Interfax reported on 15 March 2022 that Pumpyansky, who had owned 90.6 percent of TMK, had also ceased to be its beneficiary and left its board (Interfax, Forbes Russia, Forbes). In May 2025 the Yekaterinburg news agency EAN wrote that the press offices of TMK and Sinara regularly remind editors that he currently has no connection to the two companies (EAN). EAN and the EU sanctions list both describe him as president of the Sverdlovsk regional Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (EAN, Solicitors Journal).

Sanctions

CountryListedStatus in October 2026
European Union9 March 2022Listed; original listing upheld by the EU courts, several later renewals annulled
United Kingdom15 March 2022Listed (UK sanctions list, RUS0775)
Switzerland16 March 2022Listed (Switzerland adopted the EU list)
Canada5 April 2022Listed (Canada’s consolidated autonomous sanctions list)
United States2 August 2022Listed (OFAC SDN list, by determination of the State Department)

The European Union listed Pumpyansky on 9 March 2022 (Court of Justice of the EU, press release 132/23). According to the EU courts, the Council gave two reasons: that he “supported the authorities of the Russian Federation and State-owned companies” and that he was a leading businessperson in economic sectors that provide a substantial source of revenue to the Russian government. The court added that he “has not played a direct role in military offensive in Ukraine”. The United Kingdom listed him on 15 March 2022 for formerly owning or controlling, and working as a director of, TMK in the Russian energy sector (UK sanctions list). On 9 April 2025 the UK added a director disqualification sanction. Switzerland adopted the EU’s list on 16 March 2022 (Interfax), and Canada listed him on 5 April 2022.

In the United States, the State Department determined that he operates or has operated in the financial services or aerospace sector of the Russian economy. The designation took effect on 2 August 2022 (Federal Register, OFAC, Interfax, TASS). The same notice blocked the yacht Axioma as linked to him. We found no Ukrainian sanctions decision against Pumpyansky, and Poland does not list him.

The EU court cases

  • 6 September 2023, General Court (case T-270/22): The court dismissed his challenge to the original listing. It found that he could be classified as a leading businessperson in the oil and gas sectors, which provide a substantial source of revenue to the Russian government (press release 132/23).
  • 26 June 2024, General Court (case T-740/22): The court annulled the Council’s decision of September 2022 and the renewals of 2023 concerning him and his wife (Kyiv Independent, Mind.ua).
  • 2 April 2025, General Court: According to TASS, the court annulled further decisions against him, his wife and his son Alexander (TASS).
  • 10 September 2025, General Court (case T-541/24): The court annulled the Council’s decisions of September 2024 and March 2025. It held that “the mere fact” that he had held executive positions a year earlier did not justify the listing (Euronews via Yahoo News, Solicitors Journal).
  • 26 March 2026, Court of Justice (case C-696/23 P): The court dismissed his appeal against the 2023 judgment, together with the appeals of four other businessmen (press release 48/26, Official Journal notice of the appeal).

Despite the annulments, the Council kept renewing his listing. On 22 September 2026 it extended the regime until 22 September 2029 and removed three living people from the list: Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Fridman and Andrey Falaleev. Pumpyansky was not among them (Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2160, Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/2161). His wife Galina, listed by the EU and the UK as his spouse, has also won several cases in the General Court, most recently on 2 September 2026 (case T-799/25) (Global Sanctions, Solicitors Journal). Her challenge to her original listing of March 2022 failed, however: the General Court dismissed it on 6 September 2023 (case T-272/22), and on 15 October 2026 the Court of Justice dismissed her appeal and ordered her to pay the costs (case C-695/23 P). The General Court had found that she was “associated” with her husband not only through their marriage but also through common interests, because she held important positions in a foundation that managed the charitable activities of his two companies (Court of Justice, C-695/23 P, 15 October 2026). His son Alexander, a former TMK board member, is listed by the UK and Canada (UK sanctions list).

The yacht Axioma

The 72-metre yacht Axioma was arrested in Gibraltar on 22 March 2022. This was not a state confiscation but a claim by the US bank J.P. Morgan over an unpaid loan (AFP via CBS News, Gibraltar Chronicle). According to court documents, the bank had lent 20.5 million euros in December 2021 to Pyrene Investments, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, whose shareholder at the time was a Cypriot company owned by Pumpyansky (Gibraltar Chronicle). Reuters reported, citing the court papers, that the loan went into default after Pumpyansky transferred his shares in that Cypriot company to a third party on 4 March 2022 and was then sanctioned (Reuters via TimesLive). In June 2022 Gibraltar’s Supreme Court ordered the yacht to be sold at auction. The sale was completed on 27 September 2022 for 37.5 million dollars (Gibraltar Chronicle, AFP via CBS News, The Maritime Executive).

We checked the US, UK, Canadian and Polish lists on 10 October 2026, the EU list as of 22 September 2026 and the EU’s amending acts of the same day. We found no record of a criminal investigation against Pumpyansky.

About this profile

This profile was rewritten in October 2026. The 2022 version contained a list of other businessmen; its mention of “allegations of corruption” concerned one of them, not Pumpyansky. It also gave Kostroma as his birthplace, claimed that he founded Severstal in 1992, owned one of Russia’s largest banks, lived in Geneva with a wife named Natalya, gave a keynote at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum and was put on a Kremlin list of “unfriendly” individuals. It said he had dropped off the Forbes list because of the sanctions. None of this is supported by the sources we found: he was born in Ulan-Ude, his wife is Galina, and Forbes still lists him. These statements have been removed. The net worth figure in the box at the top of this page comes from Forbes and carries its date.

Sources

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