Oleg Tinkov, one of the first Russian billionaires to speak out against the country’s invasion of Ukraine, has renounced his citizenship.
(Bloomberg) — Oleg Tinkov, one of the first Russian billionaires to speak out against the country’s invasion of Ukraine, has renounced his citizenship.
“I have taken the decision to exit my Russian citizenship,” Tinkov said Monday on his Instagram account. He said he didn’t want to be associated with a country “that started a war with their peaceful neighbour and killing innocent people daily. It is a shame for me to continue to hold this passport.”
Tinkov, 54, in April published an expletive-filled post about Russia’s “insane war” on his Instagram. A week later, after Tinkoff Bank’s co-chief executive officers quit and the bank distanced itself from its founder and announced plans to drop his name from the brand, he sold his family’s stake to Vladimir Potanin for an undisclosed amount.
Tinkov, who was sanctioned by the UK in March, said he hopes more Russian business tycoons will also renounce their citizenship “so it weakens Putin’s regime and his economy, and put him eventually to defeat.”
“I hate Putin’s Russia, but love all Russians who are clearly against this crazy war!” he wrote Monday on Instagram.
Early Tuesday, Tinkov’s post vanished from his account. After about an hour, he posted a new one saying, in English and Russian, “my post of yesterday has been mysteriously disappeared. Must be Kremlin’s trolls. Reiterating: i have decided to throw out Russian citizenship after Russia invades Ukraine, and start killing innocents there.”
“Moreover, I am engaging lawyers to start revoking Tinkoff brand from the bank,” he added. “I hate when my brand/name is associated with the bank that collaborates with killers and blood.”
A Tinkoff bank spokesman said the bank owns all the rights to that brand.
Tinkov joins a growing list of wealthy Russians relinquishing their citizenship.
Nikolay Storonsky, the 38-year-old co-founder and CEO of London-based fintech startup Revolut Ltd., also renounced his Russian citizenship, Bloomberg reported on Monday. He’s worth $6.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Asked about the tycoons’ renunciation of Russian citizenship Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “It’s their right. They have practically no business left here, as far as I understand.”
Yuri Milner, the billionaire Silicon Valley investor, said earlier this month that he gave up his Russian citizenship in August. The Israeli billionaire, who is worth an estimated $3.5 billion, was born in Moscow. In an Oct. 10 tweet, Milner, 60, said he and his family “left Russia for good” in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.
–With assistance from Dayana Mustak.
(Updates with new Tinkov post, Kremlin comment from 6th paragraph)
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