Filenews 27 June 2024 - by Angelos Nicolaou
Two Russian oligarchs who acquired Cypriot citizenship during the Christofias presidency and then fell into groups of citizens as high-risk persons, are deprived of their golden passport based on yesterday's decision of the Council of Ministers.
The first oligarch was targeted by Moscow and sanctioned by the Russian Federation. The latter was sanctioned by Brussels following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The first case concerns Konstantin Grigorisin, born on November 16, 1965. He is a Russian billionaire businessman and art collector from Ukraine. He is originally from Zaporizhzhia and received Ukrainian citizenship only in 2016. He became wealthy by reselling 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, among which are the Sumy Association of Engineering and Sciences, the transport company "Ukrrichflot" (Ukrainian River Fleet) and Zaporozhtransformator (ZTR). On November 1, 2018, Russia imposed sanctions against 322 citizens of Ukraine, including Grigorishin. He obtained his golden passport in Cyprus on 4/1/2011. In November 2020, he was sentenced to prison for tax evasion and ordered to pay damages of 32 million dollars.
Russian oligarch Igor Kasaev was naturalized on 25/5/2012 during the Christofias government and as mentioned in the report of the Nikolatos committee is on a US sanctions list as the head of the arms company Degtiariov, which allegedly supplies the separatists of eastern Ukraine. Kasaev was placed on the European Union's sanctions list on 8/4/2022. It is the largest cigarette distributor in Russia and reportedly maintains close ties with the Russian FSB secret services through the Monolith Foundation, which has a formal agreement with the FSB to support the agency's pensioners. Kasaev was born on 30/10/1966 in North Ossetia and is on the Forbes billionaires list with a fortune of $3.1 billion.
