The council of ministers decided on the retraction of two more “golden passports” issued to Russian oligarchs, it emerged on Thursday.

The two Russians had acquired Cypriot citizenship during the 2008-2013 Demetris Christofias’ presidency.

The decision to deprive them of Cypriot citizenship after they became blacklisted, was taken by the cabinet on Wednesday.

The first case concerns Konstantin Grigorishin, born November 16, 1965, a Russian-Ukrainian billionaire and art collector. Originally from Zaporizhia, he received Ukrainian citizenship in 2016. He gained his wealth from reselling metal products from the Ukraine to Russia in the late 1980s.

A major shareholder in Energy Standard Group, the oligarch was initially targeted by Moscow and sanctioned by the Russian Federation on November 1, 2018, when the latter imposed sanctions against 322 citizens of Ukraine, including Grigorishin. 

His business holdings extend to several factories in the Ukraine, among them the Sumy Engineering and Science Association, the transport company Ukrrichflot (Ukrainian river fleet) and Zaporozhtransformator (ZTR). 

He obtained a passport in Cyprus on January 4, 2011. In November 2020, he was sentenced to prison for tax evasion of $18 million and ordered to pay $32 million in restitution.

The second case concerns Russian oligarch Igor Kesaev, born on October 30, 1966 in North Ossetia, who was sanctioned by Brussels following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Kesaev was naturalized in Cyprus on May 25, 2012 and was mentioned in the conclusion of the Nikolatos committee.

He is on the US sanctions list as head of the arms company Degtyaryov, which allegedly supplies the separatists of eastern Ukraine. Kesaev was added to the European Union sanctions list on August 4, 2022.

The oligarch is also Russia’s largest cigarette distributor and is said to have close ties to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) through the Monolith Foundation, which has a formal agreement with FSB to support service retirees. 

He is listed on the Forbes list of billionaires with a fortune of $3.1 billion.