FRANKFURT, May 16 (Reuters) - Russian tycoon Oleg

Deripaska dismissed the latest U.S. sanctions on a series of

companies that the U.S. Treasury said were connected to a scheme

to evade sanctions and unlock frozen shares as nonsense.

"This balderdash isn't worth the time," Deripaska said by

message via a spokesperson in response a Reuters request for

comment about the latest U.S. sanctions.

"While the horrific war in Europe claims hundreds of

thousands of lives every year, politicians continue to engage in

their dirty games. I strongly believe that we need to do

everything we can to establish peace, not serve the interests of

warmongers," he said.

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday announced it had sanctioned a

web of Russian companies it said were being used to disguise

ownership of a $1.6 billion industrial stake controlled by

Deripaska.

Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International was

planning to buy the stake and dropped the transaction following

mounting U.S. pressure to abort the bid.

In its sanctions announcement, the U.S. Treasury alleged it

was an "attempted sanctions evasion scheme" to unfreeze a stake

using "an opaque and complex supposed divestment".

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Deripaska has been

sanctioned by Britain for his alleged ties to Putin. He has

mounted a legal challenge against the sanctions which he says

are based on false information and ride roughshod over the basic

principles of law and justice.

Deripaska, who made his fortune by buying up stakes in

aluminium factories has also been subjected to sanctions by the

United States, which in 2018 took measures against him and other

influential Russians.

Those sanctions were "groundless, ridiculous and absurd",

Deripaska has previously said.