News Feed

Bloomberg: Russian elite pull $50 billion from 'unfriendly' European countries

2 min read
Bloomberg: Russian elite pull $50 billion from 'unfriendly' European countries
Dmitry Pumpyansky, billionaire and owner of TMK PAO, left, and Victor Rashnikov, owner of Magnitgorsk Iron & Steel Works PJSC, look on from the audience at a Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) event in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, March 14, 2019. (Photo credit: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Russian billionaires have pulled assets worth $50 billion from so-called "unfriendly" European countries since the start of the full-scale war due to mounting sanctions and pressure from the Kremlin, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 14.

The outlet said that Russia's wealthy are transferring their funds from locations like Cyprus, Switzerland, or the U.K. island of Jersey back to Russia or to places that Moscow considers friendly, such as Kazakhstan or the United Arab Emirates.

As Bloomberg pointed out, the first to undertake this step were fertilizer billionaire Andrey Guryev and steel tycoon Victor Rashnikov, followed by Igor Altushkin, Igor Shilov, Mark Kurtser, and others.

While the Russian elite have traditionally preferred to store assets in Europe, their options are growing thin as many of them find themselves on Western sanctions lists.

Join our community
Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight.
Support us

The Kremlin itself seeks to repatriate the wealth of Russian billionaires, using both a stick – such as suspending dual tax treaties – and a carrot – local low-tax domestic "offshore" zones.

Russian companies are also transferring their assets, with 115 business entities moving to domestic "offshore" zones this year, amounting to a total of 254, Bloomberg said, citing Russian First Deputy Economy Minister Ilya Torosov.

The U.S., the U.K., the EU, and other Western governments have imposed a number of sanctions against Russian high-profile figures linked to the Kremlin or involved in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Members of the Russian elite have had their offshore assets frozen or were barred entry to Western countries. Kyiv said it wants to create mechanisms to have the frozen assets used to pay for Ukraine's reconstruction and recovery.

On Sept. 6, U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken said that for the first time, Washington will fund support for Ukrainian military veterans using "assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs."

Investigative Stories from Ukraine: Massive leak reveals how Putin’s oligarchs evaded Western sanctions imposed due to Ukraine invasion
Welcome to Investigative Stories from Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent’s newsletter that walks you through the most prominent investigations of the past week. If you are fond of in-depth journalism that exposes war crimes, corruption and abuse of power across state organizations in Ukraine and beyond,…
Article image

Avatar
Martin Fornusek

Senior News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.

Read more
News Feed

The World Bank will provide $200 million over the next five years to prepare Ukrainian projects for large-scale reconstruction, the Economy Ministry announced on July 11. The funding will be available under the five-year PREPARE program with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

Video

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, war has become a daily reality for thousands of Ukrainian children. Some Ukrainian military units, such as the Azov Brigade, offer boot camps for teenagers to teach them the basics of self-defense, first aid, dry firing, and other survival skills — helping them prepare for both the realities of today and the uncertainties of the future.

Show More