Israel's Holocaust museum asked the US not to sanction Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich because he's one of its biggest donors

Roman Abramovich is worth $13.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Chris Brunskill Ltd / Contributor / Getty Images

• Israel's Holocaust museum asked the US not to sanction a Russian oligarch ahead of the invasion of Ukraine.
• In a joint letter to the US envoy in Israel, the Yad Vashem's chairman vouched for Roman Abramovich, saying he is one of its top donors.
• The letter also said that sanctions on Abramovich would be unfair to the Jewish world.

Last month, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum, a chief rabbi, and several Israeli charities and organizations asked the US to avoid sanctioning Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yad Vashem museum, had signed a joint letter addressed to Tom Nides, the US ambassador to Israel, saying that Abramovich is the "second-largest private donor" to the museum, per the outlet.

The letter was dated February 6, per The Times, less than three weeks before Russian President Vladimir Putin declared an assault on Ukraine, but after news emerged that the US was drafting a list of targets to sanction in answer to potential aggression from Moscow.

As of Thursday morning, Abramovich, an Israeli-Russian billionaire with close political ties to Putin, has not been placed on the list of oligarchs targeted by Western sanctions.

However, the oligarch has reportedly been trying to sell off the English Premier League Team Chelsea FC and property in London ahead of a possible new tranche of financial penalties aimed at him.

The letter praised Abramovich for what The Times described as "investments, philanthropy, and significant contributions to Israel."

It also said that sanctioning Abramovich would be unfair and negatively impact Israel and the Jewish world, The Times reported.

"Mr. Abramovich has contributed to worthy causes for more than a decade," Dayan said in the letter, according to The Washington Post. "As far as I know, Mr. Abramovich doesn't have any links to Mr. Putin."

It is not immediately clear how Dayn assessed Abramovich's relationship with the Russian leader.

Abramovich had been one of Putin's earliest supporters as the latter rose to power in the late 1990s. He recommended Putin to then-President Boris Yeltsin and even reportedly bought him a $50 million yacht, The Guardian reported in 2018.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) speaks as billionaire and businessman Roman Abramovich (left) looks on during 2016 a meeting with top businessmen in Sochi, Russia.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Abramovich, who's worth $13.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has donated more than $500 million to Israeli and Jewish causes, The Times wrote.

Two weeks after the letter was sent, he made an unspecified "eight-figure donation" to the Yad Vashem museum, The Times previously reported.

On February 22, Yad Vashem announced that it was entering a "strategic partnership" with Abramovich that would "expand and bolster Yad Vashem's research activities, at a time when Holocaust distortion, denial and politicization are rising alarmingly worldwide."

Yad Vashem did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

In response to the invasion of Ukraine, the US and other Western countries have hammered Russia's economy by imposing heavy sanctions that have also targeted oligarchs in Putin's inner circle.

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