Abramovich made his children Lithuanian citizens to avoid sanctions
The businessman transferred $4 billion worth of property to his seven children in February 2022, on the eve of the Russian invasion
Two children of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich have used Lithuanian passports to re-register part of his wealth and thus protect him from sanctions.
Source. This fact was revealed by OCCRP journalists who studied the documents proving the change of citizenship.
Abramovich transferred $4 billion worth of property to his seven children in February 2022, shortly after the UK and US threatened to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs if Russia invades Ukraine, as reported by The Guardian.
The OCCRP found that two of the children – Arkady, 30, and Anna, 31 – were Lithuanian citizens when they became the new beneficiaries of Abramovich's Grano Trust.
The Lithuanian OCCRP Center discovered this information in documents that came into the hands of a Cypriot corporate service provider.
The transfer of the foundation to Anna and Arkady took place in February and March 2022, shortly after which the UK and the EU imposed sanctions on Abramovich. Such a transaction is not illegal, but there have been cases of deprivation of citizenship in similar situations – for example, Lithuania revoked the citizenship of figure skater Margarita Drobiazko after she decided to continue performing in Russia during the war with Ukraine. Abramovich's lawyer did not respond to journalists' requests for comment.
In the fall of 2023, it also became known that Abramovich and his ex-wife Daria Zhukova own a collection of 369 paintings worth $962 million, which they hid from sanctions in a Cypriot offshore company.
The billionaire's collection includes dozens of world masterpieces. In particular, paintings by Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Lucien Freud, Alberto Giacometti, Claude Monet, René Magritte, Kazimir Malevich and others. It is not known where the collection is located, but it will most likely not be exhibited during the sanctions.
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