UK removes Tinkov from sanctions list

MOSCOW. July 20 (Interfax) - The UK has removed entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov from its sanctions list, the country's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) said in a notice posted on its website.

"The following entry has been removed from the Consolidated List and is no longer subject to an asset freeze or trust services sanctions: Oleg Yurievich Tinkov (Group ID: 15041)," the OFSI said in the notice summary.

This is the second time in July that a subject has been removed from the Russian segment of the UK sanctions list. Sanctions were removed from Lev Khasis on July 6. Khasis had been first deputy chairman of Sberbank until February 2022, then he left the Russian Federation, just as Tinkov did.

Tinkov's largest asset in Russia was an indirect stake in Tinkoff Bank, which he founded. In April 2022, he sold his stake in the holding structure of the bank, TCS Group , to Vladimir Potanin's Interros. In October of the same year, the entrepreneur announced the renunciation of his Russian citizenship.

Entrepreneur Richard Branson had previously asked the British authorities to lift sanctions against Tinkov, the Times wrote earlier this week.

The UK imposed sanctions on Tinkov in March 2022. The businessman counted on the removal of these restrictions within several years. "I'm sure they'll figure it out. A year or two or three will pass, and they'll take me off of it regardless," Tinkov said in May 2022.

"As my lawyers said, you will be the first to be removed, most likely, if something ever happens with the Russians. This is clearly a technical error. It seems to me that they took the financial sector, and I'm a big name, and I haven't even been in Russia for three years," the businessman said at the time.

In recent years, Tinkov has been living abroad where he was treated for leukemia.