Indian firm building $15bn Trump-announced steel mill has deep Russia ties

As US President Donald Trump announced a $15bn steel megaplant while seated at his Oval Office desk on Monday, he had a lineup of mostly US politicians standing behind him – from cabinet members to elected representatives from Iowa, where the mill is to be built. There was one exception: an Indian man with a receding hairline and a lilac pocket handkerchief, standing behind the US president’s right shoulder.Ravi Ruia is a cofounder of the Essar Group, which owns Mesabi Metallics, the Minnesota-based firm that’s building the steel mill, which is expected to be the United States’s largest once it is complete. A decade earlier, in October 2016, his brother Shashi was in the photo frame with a different president during the signing of another major deal: Russian leader Vladimir Putin.Steel and metallics aren’t Essar’s only association with minerals and natural resources. The conglomerate had been involved for years with oil, before it sold one of India’s largest private oil refineries to a Russian-led consortium in 2016 for nearly $13bn. Essar Oil was rebranded as Nayara Energy.Today, Nayara Energy is half-owned by Russian gas major Rosneft, which is under heavy US and European sanctio...