Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has criticised Lithuania’s efforts to review its citizenship law after it was reported that his two children have Lithuanian passports, Bloomberg reports.
Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė said on Wednesday that legislation is being drafted to allow stripping people of Lithuanian citizenship acquired by descent if they are deemed a threat to national security.
It came after Siena, a Lithuanian investigative journalism centre, reported that Abramovic’s children Anna and Arkady Abramovich, who may have helped their father circumvent international sanctions, have Lithuanian passports.
“Mr Abramovich’s children, as well as all other descendants of Lithuanian Jews who were persecuted, have the absolute legal right to their citizenship. The fact that the government of Lithuania failed to mention this context is misleading and shameful,” the Russian billionaire’s spokesperson said in a statement.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has also criticised the proposal and called for a review of whether Abramovich’s family breached sanctions.
“It’s not good to keep changing our laws targeting a specific case, specific individuals. We’ve done that in the past. But if that becomes a massive practice then I don’t think our country would be following the path of the rule of law,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Roman Abramovich’s paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jews who lived in Lithuania before the Second World War and were deported to Siberia by the Soviets.
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