Arkadiy Abramovich, son of the Russian billionaire and former Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, renewed his Lithuanian passport last autumn, a year and a half after his father was put on the EU sanctions list, the Siena Centre for Investigative Journalism reported, LRT.lt, the website of Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, said on January 8.

The revelation has caused a scandal in Lithuania, because his children are alleged to have helped their father to circumvent international sanctions.

This information was provided by the Lithuanian Migration Department, following a successful challenge to its previous refusal to do so on the grounds that it would violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and that Abramovich’s children do not qualify as public figures.

In December last year, Siena reported that Abramovich’s two children, Arkadiy and Anna, had Lithuanian citizenship and that they were involved in changing the management structure of his assets using Lithuanian passports.

Lithuanian citizenship was granted to Abramovich’s two children on the basis of descent, as the Russian billionaire’s paternal grandparents held Lithuanian citizenship.

Anna Abramovich obtained her Lithuanian passport in October 2011, after it was approved by the Migration Department. Arkadiy Abramovich, meanwhile, had his Lithuanian citizenship restored in October 2013, following a new procedure. According to the Migration Department, he received the Lithuanian passport by order of the then Interior Miniter Dailis Alfonsas Barakauskas.

When the information was first revealed, the Migration Department made no secret of the fact that the two children of the Russian oligarch have recently renewed their Lithuanian identity document but did not reveal the exact dates. However, Sienna successfully challenged the Migration Department’s decision to withhold information.

As such, it was revealed that Anna Abramovich renewed her Lithuanian passport in May 2021, but Arkadiy Abramovich was issued a new Lithuanian passport in October last year, a year and a half after Roman Abramovich was added to the EU sanctions list. It was also already known at that time that Abramovich had transferred control of his 10 funds to his children just before the invasion of Ukraine.

The Migration Department also revealed that the other five children of Abramovich, three of whom are adults, do not hold Lithuanian passports. The Russian billionaire also had the right to acquire Lithuanian citizenship on the basis of descent but has not used it.

After the information about the Lithuanian citizenship of Abramovich’s children was reported, proposals were made to allow stripping people of Lithuanian citizenship acquired by descent if they were deemed a threat to national security.

The Migration Department is also reviewing the list of persons and entities subject to EU sanctions and checking whether any family members of the sanctioned persons hold Lithuanian passports, Siena and LRT.lt reported.