The federal government's scorched-earth campaign against Ukrainian-born oligarch Oleg Deripaska has traveled all the way from Russia to the Upper East Side. To wit, the New York Post reported that the US Treasury has frozen Deripaska's US assets, including a sprawling mansion on East 64th Street in Manhattan, as it pressures Deripaska to abandon his stake in metals-and-energy holding company EN+, the London-traded holding company behind Deripaska's controlling ownership in Rusal and other ventures.

Since being slapped with sanctions in April, Deripaska's legal team has been negotiating with the US government for Deripaska to limit his involvement to help alleviate sanctions brought against Rusal, which have nearly triggered its collapse. Following Mueller's unveiling of sanctions against 24 Russian oligarchs and senior political officials, Rusal found itself effectively cut off from the western banking system and global markets. Since August, Deripaska's legal team has been negotiating with the Treasury for Deripaska to reduce his stake in EN+ and transfer some of his shares to a Russian bank (albeit one that's also under sanctions). Most recently, Deripaska offered to cut his stake in EN+ to 45%.

Though his assets are under sanction, Deripaska - who famously maintained a decade-long business relationship with Paul Manafort, bankrolling Manafort's work for a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician, until the two had a falling out - has arranged for the ex-wife of his business partner, fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich, to continue living in the residence (in unrelated news, Abramovich recently transferred $92 million worth of property to his ex-wife, Dasha Zhukova, an editor and patron of the arts, whose current address is listed as East 64th St.).

Washington has frozen Deripaska’s US-based assets, including massive mansions in Manhattan and Washington, DC. But the feds are also negotiating with him to give up some of his European-based operations to keep them running free of sanctions, Treasury officials say. Deripaska’s US assets include a mansion at 11 East 64th St. The uber-posh residence is just down the street from fellow Ukrainian-born oligarch Len Blavatnik’s mansion, which he bought for a record $90 million earlier this year. But although the US government has frozen Deripaska’s US assets, including his property, Deripaska has arranged to have the children and ex-wife of his business partner, the oligarch Roman Abramovich, live within its secure walls, The Post has learned.

Deripaska bought the mansion for $42.5 million in 2008. The double-wide, five-story townhouse was previously owned by the late international art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his then-wife, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and was an infamous battleground in their divorce. To be sure, Deripaska, who once worked with the FBI in an aborted plan to rescue an FBI agent imprisoned in Iran. And if Deripaska ever wants to end the bargaining with the US government, he can simply give the Mueller probe the "smoking gun" linking Trump to Putin.