According to a claim by the Zman Yisrael website, Ukraine is planning to impose penalties on Israeli millionaire Mikhael Mirilashvili, a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the father of Yitzhak Mirilashvili, the owner of Israel’s Channel 14.
Because he was suspected of having supported Russia’s invasion of the nation, Mirilashvili was already on Ukraine’s blacklist in February of last year. Unnamed Mirilashvili colleagues told the newspaper that the businessman is being targeted unfairly and that many of the individuals on the Ukrainian sanctions list were simply included due to their last names having a Russian ring.
On February 28, 2023, the Ukrainian government’s website posted the listing; however, Mirilashvili’s blacklisting was not made public in Israel until Monday.
Israel and other nations are being urged by Ukraine to join it in imposing sanctions on the billionaire, who is also a citizen of Georgia. In Israel, Mirilashvili, who moved there in 1995, is well recognized for a number of things.
With a net worth estimated at $3.6 billion, the Russian-language magazine “Business St. Petersburg” ranked him as the second-richest businessman in the city in 2016. The Mirilashvili family, with an estimated net worth of $2.9 billion, was ranked 144th in the “Israel Forbes” list of the world’s Jewish billionaires for 2022.
His company works in the fields of high tech, real estate, mall and casino construction, the oil industry, and renewable energy. He is the president and co-founder of the Israeli company Watergen, which creates atmospheric drinking water systems, and he is one of the creators of VKontakte, the fourth-largest social network (primarily utilized in Russia).
Orthodox Jew Mirilashvili has ties to a number of well-known politicians, including Aryeh Deri, Zev Elkin, Yuli Edelstein, and Avigdor Liberman. In addition, Mirilashvili currently holds the positions of president of the Jewish Congress of St. Petersburg, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, and president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.
According to the website maintained by the Ukrainian government, which contains a list of the organizations and people against whom sanctions have been placed, Mirilashvili was added to the list at the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky’s personal request.
The National Security Council of Ukraine and findings from its anti-corruption agency are alleged to form the foundation for the sanctions against Israel; however, the specifics of these concerns were not made clear.
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