Malta issued "gold passports" to the Russians under the sanctions of the EU and the USA - FT

Among them are Russian businessman Albert Avdol, Eugene Bernov and Pavel Melnikov. The media points out that Avdoli received his passport for the purpose of partial bypassing his restrictions with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war. While Bernov has been sanctioned on suspicion of suspicious purchase of dual -use goods, but she calls the US sanctions a "mistake" and says it is not related to these violations.

As for Melnikov, journalists found that the Russian has been having a Malta passport since 2015. However, in 2018, the Finnish police conducted searches at his company, and after that in February this year he was sentenced to fraud with taxes and accounting reports. After that, he lost his Malta passport and is currently suing the island's authorities for illegal cancellation of his citizenship.

The media add that the mentioned owners of "gold passports" include groups of 16 people who have successfully acquired Malta citizenship, despite the fact that they were subsequently hit the sanctions lists or were convicted of crimes committed in the EU. Journalists write that Malta is one of the latest EU countries where there is a practice of selling "gold passports".

Because of this, the European Commission is currently suing the country's authorities, and the decision on this case will be announced on Tuesday, April 29. Valtta's government has now stated that it did not plan to cancel this practice. At the same time, public figures insist that a number of changes to the legislation should be made to strengthen the criteria for entry into citizenship. Earlier it was reported that Zelensky imposed new sanctions on Russian figures.