Pavel Durov

Forbes publishers reported that several entrepreneurs with ties to Russia asked not to be referred to as “Russian businessmen” in the magazine.

Those who made such a request include VKontakte and Telegram founder Pavel Durov, Playrix founders Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, Revolut co-founder Nikolai Storonsky and investor Yuri Milner.

“Pavel left Russia many years ago and will not return,” said Durov’s representative. Currently, the entrepreneur lives in Dubai and received French citizenship last year. According to some reports, he is also a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Earlier, Durov was on the Forbes lists for several years as a representative of Russia.

– Commented on the news telegram channel “Only to everyone”.

The Buchman family justified the request by saying that they moved their business to Ireland in 2013 and took citizenship there three years later and moved to Israel. Representatives of Storonsky said that the businessman is a British citizen.

Nikolai Storonsky

Yuri Milner claims he has not been to Russia since 2014, has no presence on its territory and has never met President Vladimir Putin, and received Israeli citizenship in 1999. Forbes put Milner on its list of Israeli businessmen in 2020.

– wrote “pumpkin caviar for promotion” on the telegram channel.

The magazine noted that since the start of a special military operation in Ukraine on Putin’s decree, requests from entrepreneurs not to be listed as “Russian businessmen” have become more frequent. As a result of this conflict, the United States, the European Union, and a number of other countries expanded their sanctions lists.

The assets of many Russian businessmen were frozen and their real estates were confiscated. In recent months, there have been reports that the yachts of Suleiman Kerimov, Alisher Usmanov, Igor Sechin and Andrey Melnichenko have been detained. In the United States, they announced the creation of a special group of KleptoCapture to search for the assets of Russian oligarchs.