- Oligarch Leonid Nevzlin publicly renounced his Russian citizenship on Tuesday.
- The former oil tycoon fled Russia almost 20 years ago, claiming political persecution by Putin.
- He joins a handful of oligarchs breaking ranks to speak out against the Ukraine war.
Leonid Nevzlin, an oligarch and former oil tycoon, renounced his Russian citizenship in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
He joins a small but growing group of Russian elites breaking ranks to speak out against the war on Ukraine.
“Russian citizenship has become a stamp of shame which I no longer want to wear. Enough is enough,” Nevzlin wrote in the post. “I am against the war. I am against the occupation. I am against the genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
“I cannot afford to be a citizen of a country that kills children of other countries,” he continued.
But Nevzlin’s “removal” of his citizenship is likely more symbolic than legally binding. Formal renunciation can take anywhere from six to 12 months, according to SRAS.
Nevzlin co-founded the Russian oil giant Yukos with fellow oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent nearly a decade in a Russian prison following charges of fraud and tax evasion in 2005.
During the Yukos investigation, Nevzlin fled to Israel, claiming he was the victim of political persecution.
Read the article by Hannah Towey in Business Insider Australia.