These Billionaires Renounced Their Russian Citizenship Since Ukraine War

At least four billionaires have renounced their Russian citizenship since the country invaded Ukraine in late February.

More than 40 percent of the 111 Russian-born billionaires have at least one other passport, according to Forbes. Six percent have two or more, meaning that they have other options to fall back on if they decide to give up their Russian citizenship.

The European Union has been cracking down on "Golden passports" to stop Russian oligarchs from using alternative passports to help guard their assets and travel more freely. A number of Russia's wealthiest people have been subject to sanctions from the West over the war in Ukraine and their alleged links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here are the billionaires who have publicly renounced their Russian citizenship since the Ukraine war started:

Yuri Milner

On Monday, billionaire Yuri Milner, one of the 15 richest people in Russia, relinquished his citizenship.

"My family and I left Russia for good in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea," Milner tweeted. "And this summer, we officially completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship."

Milner, 60, is the richest Russian in Silicon Valley. He was an early investor in Facebook and founded the internet investment firm DST Global. He has been an Israeli citizen since 1999 but relocated to California.

He does not have any assets in Russia and has never met Putin, according to a statement by DST Global.

Israel has often been a safe haven for Russian billionaires who claim to have Jewish roots, as the country offers citizenship to anyone who can prove it through its "Law of Return."

Ruben Vardanyan

Last month, the 54-year-old former chief executive officer and shareholder of the Troika Dialog investment bank, renounced his Russian citizenship and announced that he would be moving to the mostly Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

Vardanyan said he holds an Armenian passport and the de facto leader of the region, Arayik Harutyunyan, has offered the businessman the position of state minister.

"Using myself as an example, I want to show how important Artsakh is for me and for all of us," Vardanyan said in a Facebook video posted on September 1, using the Armenian name for the territory.

"After the 2020 war, we Armenians around the world have an obligation to be together with the people of Artsakh. We should not just offer moral support, but concrete help."

Although the tycoon has indicated that the move is a patriotic gesture, heavy international sanctions against Russia may also be motivating him.

He has denied this, saying at a press conference in September that he was not under international sanctions.

Timur Turlov

Turlov, the 34-year-old billionaire, who founded the U.S.-listed Freedom Finance Investment company, renounced his Russian citizenship in June. He did not denounce the Ukraine war.

He said he had become a citizen of Kazakhstan, where he has stayed with his family for more than a decade. The renunciation of nationality in any other country is a key requirement for citizens that wish to be naturalized in the central Asian nation.

The tycoon is worth more than $2.2 billion, according to Forbes.

Leonid Nevzlin

The one-time oligarch and staunch Putin critic made the announcement to relinquish his Russian citizenship in an April Facebook post.

Nevzlin has Israeli citizenship and lives in Tel Aviv.

He told CNN in April that the decision was a long time coming.

"I do not accept this citizenship, my Russian citizenship, with the fascist Putin at the helm," he told the news channel.

Nevzlin left Russia for Israel nearly two decades ago after what he said was a politically-motivated series of charges against him and the Yukos oil company he co-founded.

The Kremlin critic escaped a life-long prison sentence after the European Court of Justice ruled that he did not receive a fair trial.

More to come?

Dionis Cenusa, political risk analyst at the Eastern European Studies Centre, foresees other Russian billionaires relinquishing their citizenship if the war continues, to shore up both their finances and reputation.

"Russian billionaires try to reduce the costs of Western sanctions, either in relation to the current direct individual sanctions or their eventuality in the future, and to the reputational costs of being associated in any way with the Russian state," Cenusa told Newsweek.

"It is very likely that this category of billionaires will foresee a further escalation of Russian aggression and act preemptively," he added.

"The Russian state could take action against such individual decisions which, according to Russian propaganda, would fall under the qualification of 'treason.' However, the Putin regime has its sight set on Ukraine and punishing Russian billionaires who refuse Russian citizenship is not an urgent priority."

Risk analyst Alex Kokcharov told Newsweek: "It is conceivable that the Kremlin decision-makers would view public renouncement of Russian citizenship by Russian businessmen as an 'act of treason' and would seek to seize their assets in Russia or to harass their Russia-based operations/businesses with endless inspections, from fire safety to tax to environmental or labor standards."

He believes that it is likely that more Russian billionaires will seek passports in other countries and rebrand their businesses as headquartered elsewhere as a result of the Ukraine war.