By Asaf Shalev
KIEV — Jewish communities in Ukraine received a $10 million gift from a perhaps unlikely source last month: a charitable organization founded by three Russian Jewish oligarchs who are being accused of having supported the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The donation is small for the three billionaires behind Genesis Philanthropy Group — Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan — who are together worth $21 billion.
L-r: Mikhail Fridman, Boris Mints, Moshe Kantor, Roman Abramovich (Getty Images)
But it is significant in part because it signals daylight between them and Putin.
The gift is also significant because it comes as the West determines whether and how to penalize Putin’s allies by targeting their wealth.
A day after the gift’s announcement, the European Union added Fridman, Aven and several other Russian businessmen to its sanctions blacklist as part of its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“With these additional sanctions, we are targeting all who are having a significant economic role in supporting Putin’s regime, and benefit financially from the system,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.
“These sanctions will expose the wealth of Putin’s elite. Those who enable the invasion of Ukraine will pay a price for their action.”
The billionaires who could face sanctions include a number of prominent Jewish philanthropists, whose giving is vital to the organizations they support but may get ensnared by financial sanctions as the West seeks to isolate Putin and his supporters.
Fridman and Aven, as well as Khan, appear among 210 names of prominent Russians on a list of possible targets for sanctions that was released by the US Treasury Dept. in 2018.
Dubbed “Putin’s list,” the names represent top political figures and so-called oligarchs who have amassed wealth and influence under Putin’s administration of the Kremlin.
They are seen as potential targets for sanctions that would prevent them from participating in global commerce, in hopes of pressuring Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine.
At least 18 of the figures on “Putin’s list” are oligarchs with Jewish backgrounds, many of whom, as with the men behind the Genesis Philanthropy Group, have increased donations to Jewish charities around the world in recent years.
Their giving has shaped efforts to commemorate the Holocaust, inculcate Jewish identity and fight anti-Semitism.
Many have also given to Chabad and to Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.
Philanthropy can be understood as a form of “cultural diplomacy” when practiced by people close to leaders like Putin.
It can also be useful in enhancing the reputation of people who accumulated wealth in an environment plagued by corruption.
Overall, charitable giving has risen substantially among wealthy Russians in recent years.
With the coming of age of a generation of Jews who were raised in the former Soviet Union, some who have made fortunes are starting to give back to their communities and becoming an important force in Jewish philanthropy in recent years, according to Andres Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network.
“There’s also a trend among Russian-speaking Jewry of rediscovering a sense of Jewish identity that was denied to them when they were growing up and feeling a commitment towards it,” Spokoiny said.
Possibly the best-known Russian Jewish oligarch is Roman Abramovich, who made his billions in oil, steel and mining following the breakup of state-owned businesses after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The owner of the elite Chelsea Football Club in England’s Premier League, he has reportedly donated more than $500 million to Jewish nonprofits in Israel and around the world.
Abramovich stepped back from Chelsea last week in anticipation of sanctions [see story, right].
But so far, Western sanctions have been concentrated on Putin himself, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian financial institutions.
These add to sanctions on a limited number of Putin cronies imposed in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and in 2016 amid revelations of Russian interference in the US presidential election.
The potential for new sanctions targeting oligarchs brings attention to the flow of money from Russia’s Jewish billionaires to Jewish nonprofits.
The $10-million donation announced by Genesis Philanthropy Group is going to support the Jewish Agency for Israel, Joint Distribution Committee, Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, and regional and local Jewish community organizations to pay for evacuation and security efforts, food distribution and relief for elderly homes and orphanages.
During normal times Genesis also gives to mainstay Jewish causes like Hillel, Moishe House, Birthright and Limmud, according to its website.
On Feb. 27, Fridman, Genesis co-founder and trustee and one of Russia’s richest people, became the first Russian oligarch to speak out against the war, calling it a “tragedy,” according to the Financial Times. In a letter he reportedly wrote to employees of his London-based private equity firm, he said he was “convinced . . . war can never be the answer.”
Fridman is the controlling owner of Alfa-Bank, a major Russian financial institution that the US and European Union last month placed under sanctions, limiting its ability to operate internationally.
Fridman’s statement was followed by a similar one from another Jewish oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. “Peace is very important! Negotiations must begin as soon as possible!” Deripaska, an outspoken Putin supporter who has been under US sanctions, wrote on Telegram, according to the Financial Times.
Two other Jewish oligarchs with ties to Putin, Igor and Boris Rotenberg, became ensnared in sanctions announced by the United Kingdom last month.
Abramovich, who’s been considered among the most likely targets for new sanctions, made a reported eight-figure donatoin to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust authority. It will pay for a new building and a book inscribed with the 4.8 million names of Holocaust victims known to the museum.
An Israeli news channel revealed that weeks earlier, before the fighting erupted in Ukraine, Yad Vashem had lobbied the US against sanctioning Abramovich in light of his “contribution to the Jewish people.”
Abramovich has long denied that he is an ally of Putin, and his representatives told the Guardian newspaper that “it would be ludicrous to suggest that our client has any responsibility or influence over the behavior of the Russian state.”
Spokoiny, of the Jewish Funders Network, says, “I hope that the important work that people are doing in Jewish communities is not affected by the sanctions.”
