Igor Rybakov: TechnoNICOL Co-Founder, Philanthropist and Poland’s Sanctions

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

Sanctions status — checked 18 October 2026

Not found on the OFAC SDN, UK OFSI or EU consolidated lists.

Absence from these three lists does not mean no restrictions apply elsewhere: other countries and earlier listings are covered in the sanctions section below. 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 Igor Rybakov’s net worth at $1.4 billion as of 18 October 2026 (Forbes profile). Estimates are revised continuously and Forbes and Bloomberg frequently disagree.

Igor Rybakov is a Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist. In 1992 he co-founded TechnoNICOL, a producer of roofing, waterproofing and insulation materials, with his university friend Sergei Kolesnikov. He stepped back from running the company in 2015 and has since focused on investing and on the Rybakov Foundation, which he set up with his wife Ekaterina. He is not on the US, UK, EU or Canadian sanctions lists. Poland has frozen his assets under its national sanctions law because of his stake in TechnoNICOL’s Polish companies.

  • Born: 16 May 1972 (Polish Interior Ministry) in Magnitogorsk (Rossiyskaya Gazeta)
  • Education: Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), class of 1996 (MIPT alumni association)
  • Known for: co-founder and co-owner of TechnoNICOL, co-founder of the Rybakov Foundation and the Rybakov Prize
  • Sanctions as of October 2026: Poland (national list, since May 2023), Ukraine (since October 2022); not listed by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union or Canada

TechnoNICOL

Rybakov founded TechnoNICOL in 1992, at the age of 20, together with his classmate Sergei Kolesnikov (Forbes, rybakovigor.com). The two had been roommates at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Bloomberg via The Moscow Times). The company makes roofing, waterproofing and thermal insulation materials. Forbes lists Rybakov as the owner of 50 percent.

Rybakov ran the business until 2015, when he stepped away from day-to-day management and co-founded the technology investor Prytek (Forbes, Vedomosti). In October 2019 the two partners restructured their holdings: they kept the Russian assets in equal shares, and two thirds of the European plants went to Kolesnikov (Kommersant, Forbes Russia).

In July 2024 TechnoNICOL completed the sale of its plants in Italy and Lithuania to the French roofing company Soprema and left the European market. In the company’s statement, Rybakov called the sale forced and the company’s 20-year push into Europe unsuccessful (Interfax).

Sanctions

CountryListedStatus in October 2026
Poland30 May 2023Listed (national sanctions list of the Interior Ministry)
Ukraine19 October 2022Listed for ten years (Presidential Decree No. 727/2022)
United StatesnoNot listed (OFAC SDN list)
United KingdomnoNot listed (UK sanctions list)
European UnionnoNot listed (EU consolidated list)
CanadanoNot listed (Canada’s consolidated autonomous sanctions list)

Poland’s Interior Ministry put Rybakov on its national sanctions list on 30 May 2023. The measures include a freeze of all funds and economic resources, a ban on making funds available to him, exclusion from public procurement and entry on Poland’s list of undesirable foreigners. The ministry stated that Rybakov and Kolesnikov are the beneficial owners of TechnoNICOL’s Polish companies, which have since been renamed Boerner (Polish Interior Ministry, Interfax via X-Compliance). This is a measure under Polish national law, not a court ruling.

Polish authorities placed the companies Boerner Insulation and Boerner Service under forced administration (Prime). In 2025 the insulation plant became part of Holcim Polska (RTVI). On 28 May 2026 Rybakov and Kolesnikov sued Poland, PKO Bank Polski, Holcim and others at the Moscow Arbitration Court for 9.4 billion rubles (Interfax). The court has scheduled the main hearing for 25 November 2026 (Prime).

We checked the US, UK and Canadian lists on 6 October 2026 and the EU list as of 22 September 2026 and found no entry for Igor Rybakov. Entries under the same surname on these lists belong to other people. Ukraine has also sanctioned Rybakov: the annex to Presidential Decree No. 727/2022 of 19 October 2022 lists him with his date of birth and sets the measures, including the blocking of assets, for ten years. It gives no reasons (Decree No. 727/2022).

The Rybakov Foundation and the Rybakov Prize

Igor and Ekaterina Rybakov founded the Rybakov Foundation in December 2015 as a private philanthropic organisation (Rybakov Foundation). It supports education programmes (Forbes). In 2019 the couple established the Rybakov Prize, a $1.2 million international award for philanthropists who invest their own money in preschool and school education. It was first awarded in February 2020 (Rybakov Prize). In January 2020 Rybakov gave $1 million to his former school, No. 56 in Magnitogorsk, as an endowment (Rossiyskaya Gazeta).

About this profile

This profile was rewritten in October 2026. An earlier version from 2022 gave a wrong birthplace and a wrong source of his wealth. It attributed to him political offices and political positions for which we found no source, mixed up his business with companies owned by other people, and described a “Rybakov Prize” that does not exist in that form. 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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