JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Ukraine is set to impose sanctions on Israeli billionaire Mikhael Mirilashvili, a close friend to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and father of Yitzhak Mirilashvili, the owner of Israel’s Channel 14, according a report by the Zman Yisrael website.
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Mirilashvili was already blacklisted this past February by Ukraine for allegedly supporting the Russian invasion of the country. Unnamed associates of Mirilashvili told the newspaper the businessman is being persecuted for unjust reasons, claiming that many of the businesspeople on the Ukrainian sanctions list were added only because of their Russian-sounding last names.
While the listing appeared on the Ukrainian government’s website on Feb. 28, 2023, Mirilashvili’s blacklisting was not reported in Israel until Monday.
Ukraine is now calling on other countries, including Israel, to join it in sanctioning the billionaire, who also holds Georgian nationality.
Mirilashvili, who immigrated to Israel in 1995, is well known there for several reasons. The Russian-language publication “Business St. Petersburg” listed him in 2016 as the second-wealthiest businessman in the city, with a net fortune estimated at $3.6 billion. The publication “Israel Forbes” placed the Mirilashvili family as 144 on its 2022 list of the world’s Jewish billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $2.9 billion.
His business enterprise operates in the fields of high tech, real estate, construction of shopping malls, casinos, the petroleum industry and renewable energy. He is one of the founders of the fourth-largest social network VKontakte (mostly used in Russia) and is president and co-founder of the Israel-based Watergen company, which develops atmospheric drinking water devices. Mirilashvili, an orthodox Jew, is also associated with other prominent politicians including Aryeh Deri, Zev Elkin, Yuli Edelstein and Avigdor Liberman.
Mirilashvili also currently serves as president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, vice president of the World Jewish Congress and president of the Jewish Congress of St. Petersburg.
The Ukrainian government’s website, which lists the companies and individuals on whom sanctions have been imposed, states that Mirilashvili was added to the list on the personal orders of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The sanctions against the Israeli are said to be based on reports from Ukraine’s anti-corruption authority and the country’s National Security Council, although the nature of these suspicions was not specified.