Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov, the former owner of the Tinkoff bank, who publicly condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine and renounced his Russian citizenship, has asked the British Foreign Office to remove him from the sanctions list.
Source. This was reported by Bloomberg.
"I support the decision of the British government to impose sanctions on people who support Putin or contribute to the war. It is sad that they mistakenly considered me one of those people. Lifting my sanctions would be fair and would send a signal that Western sanctions are not directed against all Russians, but only those who support Putin and his invasion," Tinkov said in a statement.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky also asked the British Foreign Office to lift the restrictions on Tinkov in a letter.
"I believe that the decision to impose sanctions on him was a mistake. The lifting of sanctions should be clearly linked to a public disavowal of this regime and its aggressive war," Khodorkovsky said in an interview.
The British authorities do not comment on such individual cases, but a person under sanctions has the right to appeal the decision.
Tinkov came under UK sanctions in March 2022, and on April 19, he publicly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine in strong terms.
In October 2022, Tinkov announced that he was renouncing his Russian citizenship. "I cannot see my former compatriots killing and robbing civilians for no reason. I want to 'see it all through'," Tinkov wrote on Instagram at the time.
After that, he was forced to sell his stake in Tinkoff Bank for a pittance and move abroad.