Two Russian oligarchs who acquired Cypriot citizenship during Christofias’s presidency and were included in groups of citizens as high-risk persons have now had their golden passports revoked following a decision by the cabinet yesterday.
The first oligarch was targeted by Moscow and had sanctions imposed on him by the Russian Federation. The second oligarch was sanctioned by Brussels after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The first case concerns Konstantin Grigorishin, a Russian billionaire businessman and art collector from Ukraine. He was born in Zaporizhzhia on November 16, 1965 and acquired Ukrainian citizenship in 2016.
He became wealthy by trading metallurgical products from Ukraine to Russia in the late 1980s. He is a major shareholder in Energy Standard Group, which owns several factories in Ukraine, including the Sumy Machine-Building Science-and-Production Association, the shipping company ‘Ukrrichflot’, and Zaporozhtransformator (ZTR).
On November 1, 2018, Russia imposed sanctions against 322 Ukrainian citizens, including Grigorishin.
He acquired the golden passport in Cyprus on 4/1/2011.
In November 2020, he was sentenced to imprisonment for tax evasion of $18 million and was ordered to pay compensation of $32 million.
The Russian oligarch Igor Kesaev, who was naturalised during Christofias’s presidency and was included in the lists of citizens as a high-risk person, has also been sanctioned.
He is on the US sanctions list as the head of the Degtiariov arms company, which is said to supply separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Kesaev, born on 30 October 1966 in North Ossetia, is on the EU sanctions list as of April 8, 2012.
He is Russia’s top cigarette tycoon and is said to maintain close ties with the Russian secret services, the FSB, through the Monolith Foundation, which has an official agreement with the FSB to support its retirees.
Kesaev, born on October 30, 1966, is on the Forbes list of billionaires with a fortune of $3.1 billion.
