Another Russian Tycoon Renounces Russian Citizenship Amid Ukraine War

Another Russian billionaire has renounced his Russian citizenship amid Moscow's ongoing, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Yury Milner said on Twitter on October 11 that he left Russia in 2014 after Moscow's illegal seizure of Ukraine's Crimea, and that he has now further cut ties with his homeland.

"My family and I left Russia for good in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea. And this summer, we officially completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship," Milner said. He did not elaborate.

The 60-year-old tycoon, who is a co-founder of the investment company DST Global, got Israeli citizenship in 1999. After leaving Russia, he moved to Israel for several years before relocating to the United States.

Milner, who has an estimated wealth of $7.3 billion, is the third billionaire known to have renounced his Russian citizenship since Moscow launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine on February 24.

His website specifically points out that he has not visited Russia since 2014, he has no assets in Russia, that 97 percent of his personal wealth was created outside of the country, and that he has never met President Vladimir Putin, "either individually or in a group."

In April, Forbes magazine said that several Russian-linked entrepreneurs asked editors not to call them Russian businessmen. Forbes said at the time that the number of such requests increased as Western sanctions were imposed on Russia, its politicians, celebrities, and tycoons seen as being close to Putin, over the war against Ukraine.

Last month, former chief executive officer and shareholder of the Troika Dialog investment bank, Ruben Vardanian, renounced his Russian citizenship, saying that he holds an Armenian passport and moved to the mostly Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

In June, the founder of the Freedom Finance investment company, Timur Turlov, renounced his Russian citizenship, saying that he had become a citizen of Kazakhstan, where he and his family had stayed for more than 10 years.