A Russian oligarch who fled to Israel after being targeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin renounced his citizenship Tuesday and expressed support for Ukraine.
Leonid Nevzlin made the announcement via Facebook, describing the atrocities Putin placed on the Russian own people in the past 20 years and expressing his willingness to become a citizen of Ukraine.
“Russian citizenship has already become a stamp of shame on itself, which I no longer want to wear on myself. Enough is enough. I am against the war. I am against the occupation. I am against the genocide of the Ukrainian people. I am a citizen of Israel, and if I think about a second citizenship, I would be proud to have a Ukraine passport.”
Nevzlin wrote he will not associate himself with the “criminal regime” of a “fascist state.” (RELATED: ‘Obviously Insane Czar’: Navalny Urges Russians To Protest Ukraine Invasion Every Day)
“Everything Putin touched was dead. I remember a time when the phrase ‘Russian world’ was not associated with the joint efforts of the Chekists and the RPC to create an agent of influence in the diaspora,” he wrote. “When the concept of ‘Russia media’ was not an accurate synonym for lies, and ‘Russian gas’ was not an element of international blackmail. But now everything, where there is a ‘Russian’ console, deservedly provokes hatred and rejection in any normal person anywhere in the world.”
Nevzlin founded the Yukos oil company after the fall of the Soviet Union, then fled to Israel in 2003 after Putin targeted the company and its senior executives, Fox News reported.
He then was convicted in absentia of criminal conspiracy to murder in 2008, the outlet reported.
“I was one of the first to be hit by Putin,” he said. “He threw my friends in jails, and killed some of them.”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has reportedly led to over 2,000 civilian deaths and caused over one million to flee their homeland.
Russian media has attempted to cover up the war in Ukraine, with state-backed talk show hosts painting Ukrainians as the aggressors and threatening journalists up to 15 years in prison for reporting facts Russian officials want covered up from its people.