Cash from here!

Since the beginning of a full -scale war in Ukraine, six billionaires have already abandoned the Russian passport. We recall their biographies

From the beginning of the full -scale invasion of Russia to the territory of Ukraine in February, at least six Russian oligarchs abandoned their passport. The geography of their new citizenship is wide - from Great Britain to Kazakhstan.

Russian legislation is quite loyal to the rejection of citizenship: for this it is enough to have another passport (or guarantees of its acquisition) and not have outstanded “obligations” to the state (in the form of taxes or criminal cases). And some of the wealthy Russians decided to use this. Not everyone tells about the reasons for such a decision, but most often they disagree with the policy of the Russian Federation or (unspoken) desire to get out of Western restrictions.

Igor Makarov - Cyprus

Condition: $ 2.1 billion (2023) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #57 (2023) Rating of American Forbes: #1368 (2023)

Field of activity: gas production, investment

Igor Makarov is a Turkmen businessman, founder of the Areti group of companies. Born in 1962 in Ashgabat, where he graduated from Turkmen State University.

In 1992, he founded and headed the ITER group of companies - the first independent gas company in Russia, specializing in the resale of Turkmen gas. In 1999, the ITERS turnover amounted to $ 2 billion (for comparison: Gazprom had $ 8.5 billion), and in 2000 - $ 3 billion, Forbes wrote .

In the early 2010s, he sold his company Rosneft. In 2012, Rosneft and Iteri entered into an agreement on cooperation for joint exploration and development of gas fields in Russia. The joint venture, where Rosneft received 51% of the shares of ITERS, included gas and some other assets of ITERS, and the Rosneft belonging to the gas deposits of the Kyn-Rakelsky group (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug).

In 2013, Rosneft acquired the remaining 49% of the shares of Iter for $ 2.9 billion: $ 1.8 billion of them personally went to Makarov. After the sale of his gas assets, Makarov gave the company a new name, turning the word “Iter” - the company became known as “Areti”.

When specifically the businessman received a Cyprus passport is unknown. However, in September 2020, Igor Makarov got into the list of Russians and Ukrainians published by the Politis newspaper, under suspicion of the Cyprus government due to the issuance of “gold passports” in exchange for investments in 2008-2012.

In 2022, the oligarch was included in the sanctions lists of Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. According to the American Forbes website, constantly lives in Miami, Florida.

Makarov refused to comment on his rejection of Russian citizenship - information about this appeared on the eve of the Forbes website.

Timur Turlov - Kazakhstan

Condition: $ 3.7 billion (2023) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #36 (2022) Rating of American Forbes: #949 (2023) Field of activity: Finance and Investments

Timur Turlov is the founder and main owner of the Freedom financial holding, which included the investment company Freedom Finance, the Freedom24 online Broker and the bank Freide Finance. The holding also owned a minority share in the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. Since October 2019, the American Freedom Holding has been trading on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, he openly opposed Russian aggression. “War should not be not only in the center of Europe, but even anywhere in the world. There are no “different realities” for me, ” said Turlov.

The businessman openly announced his abandonment of Russian citizenship in favor of the Kazakhstani in June 2022. Kazakhstan does not allow his citizens to have a second citizenship, so Turlov had to abandon the Russian passport and the passport of the Caribbean state St. Kits and Nevis.

“It breathes freely here, and I believe that, thanks to its peaceful and hospitable policy, Kazakhstan will be able to build a new, richer, effective, fair state,” -

Turlov wrote in his social networks.

According to him, he began the process of naturalization in Kazakhstan twelve years ago: it was there that the headquarters of the holding is located.

In February 2023, Freedom Holding Turlova closed the transaction for the sale of Russian assets: 100% of the shares of the investment company Frida Finance were sold to Deputy General Director Maxim Povyshin. The amount of the transaction amounted to $ 140 million.

Ruben Vardanyan - Armenia

Condition: $ 1.2 billion (2023) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #116 (2021) Rating of American Forbes: #2259 (2023)

The field of activity: Investments “Father of the Russian Stock Market” and one of the founders of the Moscow School of Management “Skolkovo” Ruben Vardanyan began his activities in the early 1990s, becoming the founder of the first investment bank “Three Dialogue” in Russia.

According to the OCCRP investigation project, the offshore structures of the Three Dialogs have been repeatedly used for translating money to influential people in Russia: in particular, they appeared in the Magnitsky case about the theft of 5.4 billion rubles from the budget under the guise of reimbursement of income tax. Vardanyan called this investigation "with the information torn from context and fiction."

In 2002-2004 he was the general director, in 2004-2005 - the chairman of the board of directors of OJSC Rosgosstrakh, at different times was part of the councils of directors of AvtoVAZ, KAMAZ, NovATEK, SIBUR Holding and Standard Bank.

In 2012, the entrepreneur sold his package in Troika Dialog for $ 1 billion, becoming the Sberbank CIB lounge (the new name “Troika”), as well as an adviser to the president and chairman of the board of Sberbank.

At the moment, he is the president of Vardanyan, Breitman and partners and the co -founder of the family fund, to whom he transferred his Russian assets.

Vardanyan announced his rejection of Rossi citizenship in September 2022. “I made a decision, understanding what risks I take on myself, to abandon Russian citizenship and move to Artsakh (self-name of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic-approx. Editor) as a citizen of Armenia. This decision was very difficult for me, but so correctly, ”Vardanyan said in his video message .

According to him, due to a series of conflicts with Azerbaijan, many residents of Nagorno-Karabakh had "the feeling that they are abandoned, that no one needs them." “I think this is unacceptable. I believe that after the war of 2020, we, the Armenians of the whole world, are obliged to be with the Artsakhites, ”the entrepreneur said then.

In November 2022, Vardanyan was appointed state minister (head of government) Karabakh and transferred his business assets to the family trust. In February 2023, he resigned from his post in the republic, which was one of the conditions for the beginning of the next round of negotiations between the conflicting parties.

Yuri Milner - Israel

Condition: $ 6.8 billion (2023) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #15 (2022) Rating of American Forbes: #352 (2023)

Field of activity: investment

Milner was born in Moscow in 1961. In 1985 he graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in theoretical physics. After he worked at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the same department with Andrei Sakharov. Until 1995, he worked at the World Bank, where he was an expert on the Russian banking system. Israeli citizenship received in 1999.

He was one of the first sponsors of Facebook and Twitter through its DST Global venture fund. After the sale of shares in these companies, he invested in Spotify and Airbnb. In the 2010s he financed Chinese technological companies, including Alibaba and JD.com online stores, as well as Xiaomi mobile phones.

In 2010, DST was divided into the Russian and international part, the first received a new name - Mail.ru Group (later - VK). He left his post as head of Mail.ru in 2012, on the eve of settling in California.

On his official website, the entrepreneur is actively promoting himself as an Israeli investor: in particular, it reports that Milner has not been in Russia since 2014, has not been a tax resident of Russia since 2011, has never met with Vladimir Putin, and 97% of his condition was earned outside the Russian Federation. At the same time, it confirms that one of the investors of its fund was the VTB Bank (later these investments were returned), as well as billionaire Alisher Usmanov (his last investment in DST Global funds was in 2011).

The same site reports that finally the procedure for refusing Russian citizenship ended in August 2022.

“My family and I left Russia forever in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea. And this summer we officially completed the process of abandoning our Russian citizenship, ”the entrepreneur wrote in October last year.

The entrepreneur did not give others more about the reasons for the rejection of the Russian passport.

Nikolai Peninonsky - Great Britain

Condition: $ 3.3 billion (2023) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #16 (2022) Rating of American Forbes: #878 (2023)

The field of activity: the Finnchisher of the British-Lithuanian online bank Revolut was born and raised in Moscow. After graduating from MFTI and RES, he was engaged in trading for several years and worked in the Swiss Credit Suisse.

In 2015, Peninonsky founded the startup Revolut with Ukrainian Vlad Yatsenko. Yuri Milner Yuri Milner, in a growing British startup, in particular the DST GLOBAL DST Global.

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the billionaire called for the immediate world:

“War is never an answer. This war is wrong and completely disgusting. I am horrified and shocked by its consequences, and I join those who around the world calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities and diplomatic decisions. No one should die anymore in this unnecessary conflict ",

- said Penitonsky.

At the end of October last year, the Representative of Revolut said that Peninsky “some time ago” refused Russian citizenship. Officially, the reasons for this decision were not explained, but in an interview with Forbes, the representative of Revolut hinted that the decision was made due to the beginning of a full-scale war in Ukraine.

“He still resolutely calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities,” said one of the company representatives.

In October last year, Ukraine imposed sanctions against his father, Gazprom Promgaz CEO of Nikolai Sorovskoye Sr.. The company representative emphasized that Peninonsky Jr. abandoned the Russian passport before the introduction of sanctions against his father.

Oleg Tinkov - Cyprus

Condition: $ 4.7 billion (2021) Rating of the Russian Forbes: #32 (2021) Rating of American Forbes: #608 (2021)

The field of activity: the fintech of one of the largest private banks was born in the Kemerovo region. At the end of Perestroika, he entered the Mountain Institute, which threw in the third year

For the nineties and zero, he founded and subsequently sold businesses in the field of electronics, catering and restaurant business. In 2006, Tinkov acquired the Moscow Khimmashbank and on its basis created the first bank with remote services in Russia, which later called Tinkoff Credit Systems, and since 2015 - Tinkoff Bank.

After the start of a full -scale invasion of Ukraine, Tinkov was included in the sanctions list of Great Britain, which he later called the error.

“I should never have been included in the sanctions list, but I understand that mistakes can be made in difficult situations,” the businessman said . He added that he intends to appeal this decision.

In April last year, Tinkov’s family trust sold a share in TCS Group, which owned Tinkoff Bank, by the company Interros, billionaire Vladimir Potanin. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Soon after her closure, Tinkov in an interview with The New York Times said that he had sold the business “for a penny” under pressure due to the threat of nationalization after his statements regarding the war in Ukraine. Potanin, in response to this, stated that he "calls hundreds of millions of dollars in a penny that has not rotated."

Tinkov said his decision to abandon Russian citizenship at the end of October 2022. He published a certificate of withdrawal from citizenship dated October 26 in his instructure.

“I can’t see all this, and be associated with Putin fascism! I can’t see how my former compatriots kill and rob just peaceful people. I hope more and more businessmen will follow me, and stop working for fascism, throw their business and citizenship ”,

- The businessman wrote .

In November last year, the Russian Forbes divisionestimated Oleg Tinkov’s condition at $ 860 million. According to the publication, if Tinkov had not sold his share in TCS Group, his fortune at that moment would be $ 3.5 billion.