Durov and Milner asked Forbes not to call them Russian billionaires

A number of businessmen who were born and raised in Russia amid US sanctions, Britain and the EU asked Forbes not to call them Russian billionaires. Among them are Pavel Durov, Yuri Milner,

Businessmen "connected with Russia" asked the American Forbes not to call them Russian billionaires, the magazine writes.

Such appeals have been received for several years, but in the past few months their number has grown, including against the backdrop of US, UK and EU sanctions after the start of the military operation in Ukraine.

With such a request, Forbes was approached by the founder of the social network VKontakte and the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov , who was born in St. Petersburg . “Pavel left Russia many years ago and is not going to return,” his representative told the publication. Durov said in 2014 that he did not intend to live and work in Russia, he explained his decision to leave the country in the text "Seven reasons not to return." Among them, the entrepreneur named "lack of honest and independent courts" and "an abundance of conflicting laws." In 2013, the founder of Telegram received the citizenship of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and in the fall of 2021, France. In recent years, he has been living in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered.

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In the Forbes ranking of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia for 2021, Durov ranks ninth with a fortune of $17.2 billion. The American version of the magazine in April 2022 estimated him at $15.1 billion.

The brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman , who in 2004 founded mobile game developer Playrix in Vologda, also asked not to be called Russian businessmen. In 2013 they moved the business to Ireland. Entrepreneurs asked Forbes to call them citizens of Israel, where they emigrated in 2016. The brothers now live in London. In 2021, the Russian Forbes estimated the fortune of Igor and Dmitry Bukhmanov at $7.9 billion each; according to the American version of the magazine, in April of this year it is $8.1 billion.

Nikolay Storonsky (Nick Storonsky) , co-founder of the technology company Revolut, made a similar request to the magazine . He was born and raised in Russia, but left the country at the age of 20. “Nick is a British citizen,” his spokesman said. According to the American Forbes, Storonsky's fortune as of April 2022 is $7.1 billion. The Russian version contains data for 2021 - $1.2 billion.

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The partner of billionaire Roman Abramovich and the head of the investment company Millhouse Yevgeny Shvidler asked not to call him a Russian . It was not the businessman himself who turned to the magazine, but his business partner, who stated that Shvidler "is not and never was a citizen of the Russian Federation." The entrepreneur was born in Ufa, but “technically he never had a Russian passport,” writes Forbes. He became a US citizen in 1994 and a British citizen in 2010. American Forbes estimates Shvidler's fortune at $1.7 billion (data for April 2022).

Forbes was also approached by a native of the Ukrainian SSR, Leonard Blavatnik . He grew up in Russia and moved to the US in 1978 at the age of 21. According to Forbes, the entrepreneur "got rich in partnership with Viktor Vekselberg," who is under US and British sanctions for having "close ties" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Blavatnik himself does not appear on the sanctions list. He invested in Warner Music, petrochemical company LyondellBasell, and made donations to Stanford, Harvard and Oxford universities. Blavatnik's spokesman told Forbes that the businessman "has never been a Russian and is not an oligarch"; he has both American and British citizenship. As of April, the businessman's fortune is $34.3 billion.

Another entrepreneur is Yuri Milner , Forbes calls him "the most influential technology investor in Russia." Milner was born in Moscow and graduated from Moscow State University. On the businessman's website, Forbes noticed, he is listed as an Israeli investor. Milner received the citizenship of this country in 1999, and has been living in California since 2014. According to the businessman, he has not been to Russia since 2014, has no assets in the country and has never met Putin. American Forbes estimates his fortune at $7.3 billion; the businessman is also in the Russian version of the rating for 2021 with a fortune of $4.8 billion.

Since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine , sanctions against Russian businessmen have been imposed by the European Union, the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland and other countries, their assets have been frozen. The Kremlin compared these actions with “a robbery, like in the Wild West” and emphasized that Russian entrepreneurs honestly earned what was confiscated due to sanctions.