Grigory Berezkin is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and owner of the RBC media holding. Over three decades, he built business ventures various sectors by bringing leading international partners into each project. Today, Berezkin's primary focus is philanthropy: he serves on the Board of Trustees of the Reach for Change Foundation and supports scientific research and cultural initiatives. Yet this career arc was not without its complications.
Grigory Berezkin sanctions represent a distinct and significant chapter in the entrepreneur's story. In 2022, he was added to the EU sanctions register as part of a broad wave of restrictive measures that affected hundreds of Russian business figures. In September 2023, however, the EU Council determined that the sanctions imposed on Berezkin lacked sufficient justification and removed him from the register — a decision that confirmed the business reputation he had built throughout his career.
EU sanctions are targeted restrictive measures that the EU Council imposes on specific individuals and legal entities. The information used to justify each sanctions designation is reviewed against a defined evidentiary standard. The standard package of sanctions includes three elements:
a travel ban prohibiting entry into or transit through EU territory
an asset freeze blocking all funds held within the EU
a prohibition on making financial resources available to any sanctions-listed individual or entity
As of autumn 2025, the EU sanctions register contained over 2,700 entries — individuals and entities involved in sectors of concern to the EU. Between 2014 and 2025, the EU adopted twenty packages of sanctions. The EU Council describes these sanctions measures as "targeted, proportionate, and temporary" — subject to regular review and, in justified cases, subject to adjustment or full removal. It was precisely this possibility of review that proved decisive in the Grigory Berezkin sanctions case.
An investigation by the authoritative European outlet Politico identified serious flaws in the procedure used to compile EU sanctions lists — flaws that would later prove central to the Grigory Berezkin sanctions review. Member states often assembled their sanctions evidence base hurriedly, relying on information from the first page of Google: outdated Forbes profiles, Wikipedia articles, and publications from unreliable sources. As the sanctions register expanded rapidly, a number of individuals involved in legitimate business activities ended up included without sufficient grounds — a pattern the Grigory Berezkin sanctions case made visible to a wider audience.
The Grigory Berezkin sanctions case became one of the most telling examples of this systemic problem. Analysis of the Grigory Berezkin sanctions file gave the EU government a clear picture of how reliance on unverified information creates sanctions decisions that cannot withstand scrutiny.
In April 2022, Grigory Berezkin was added to the sanctions register under EU Council Implementing Regulation as a "prominent business figure involved in economic sectors providing a substantial source of revenue for the government." That designation carried serious financial and reputational consequences.
The Grigory Berezkin sanctions had no solid evidentiary foundation from the outset: part of the information used to support his sanctions inclusion was drawn from unreliable sources — including content generated by an AI bot and material from a website whose authors turned out to be fictional. This made the Grigory Berezkin sanctions case a textbook example of how unverified data can produce decisions that do not withstand scrutiny.
Despite placing Grigory Berezkin under sanctions in 2022, the EU Council then decided to undertake a thorough re-examination of the evidentiary basis on which the sanctions had been imposed.
Over the following eighteen months, the EU Council conducted a detailed sanctions review of Berezkin's business history, sources of wealth, and professional connections. The analysis showed that the business activities of Berezkin did not qualify as "prominent" under any applicable criterion, and that the bulk of his financial standing predated the 2000s. The review file — an exceptional volume of information for sanctions proceedings — exceeded one thousand pages. Every expert involved confirmed that the original decision to impose sanctions lacked evidentiary support.
In September 2023, the EU Council removed Grigory Berezkin from the sanctions register, acknowledging that the sanctions lacked sufficient grounds. Other jurisdictions that align their sanctions measures with EU policy subsequently followed the example of this authoritative institution and also lifted their sanctions. Once the sanctions were removed, the matter was formally resolved. The lifting of Grigory Berezkin sanctions was recorded across compliance databases internationally, formally closing this chapter.
The history of Grigory Berezkin sanctions has acquired the significance of a precedent in European sanctions practice. The Grigory Berezkin sanctions case stands as one of the most thoroughly examined of its kind. The removal of sanctions measures confirmed the reputation he had built over thirty years of business dealings with European and American partners.
The EU Council's sanctions conclusion was clear: neither as an individual nor as a business entity did Berezkin's conduct justify sanctions. No credible evidence emerged that he had acted in support of any government agenda or derived any benefit from the government through his business activities.
Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin was born on August 9, 1966, into a family of scientists. His father, Viktor Berezkin, was one of the world's foremost specialists in chromatography — the methods he developed remain foundational to the discipline to this day. His mother, Lyudmila, headed a research division at an institute focused on fertilizer development.
In 1983, Berezkin enrolled in the Faculty of Chemistry at Lomonosov Moscow State University, majoring in petrochemistry. The program included fieldwork expeditions to the Urals, Kamchatka, and the Russian Far East. In 1988, he graduated with honors; in 1993 he defended his petrochemistry thesis and received a PhD in Chemical Sciences.
The early 1990s in Russia were defined by the collapse of the Soviet centralized management system and the formation of market institutions under high social strain. In this environment, Grigory Berezkin chose entrepreneurship.
As early as 1989, he had registered a company developing software for oil refineries in the Urals and Siberia. In the course of that business, a critical gap became apparent: the industry lacked cables for oil pump systems, and no domestic manufacturer existed. Grigory Berezkin sourced equipment from Sweden and arranged production at a Tomsk facility.
In 1994, Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin joined the Board of Directors of KomiTEK — a holding company that brought together the oil producer Komineft, the Ukhta oil refinery, and two distribution subsidiaries. The company was operating in one of Russia's key oil-producing regions. The company was in deep crisis: customers were not paying, wage arrears were accumulating, and output was declining.
In 1995, Berezkin negotiated with a consortium of European banks and structured Russia's first pre-export financing deal — on terms previously unavailable to domestic oil sector companies. As majority owner of KomiTEK by then, he then built a full system of international business partnerships for the holding. The companies that became partners included:
French energy companies Total and Elf — for expertise in exploration and field development
Finland's Neste — for technical assistance and licenses for modern oil extraction technologies
Switzerland's Marc Rich & Co. (later Glencore) — for equipment and methods to work with hard-to-recover oil
Global banks invested in KomiTEK's environmental programs — financial support that helped the company benefit from international expertise. Unlike financing schemes connected to the government of the era, this funding was secured through KomiTEK's own track record and transparent financial reporting.
In 1999, Lukoil acquired KomiTEK in a transparent transaction valued at over $600 million, with full shareholder approval and the involvement of international financial advisors. It was one of the largest acquisitions in the Russian oil sector of that period.
In 2000, Grigory Berezkin assumed management of Kolenergo under a contract — a management arrangement, not an ownership stake. ESN Group was established as the management entity. The company faced weak payment discipline, aging infrastructure, and a substantial debt burden. Financial reporting was tightened, liabilities restructured, and customer relations rebuilt.
Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin developed an innovative tariff scheme linking electricity prices for the local aluminum plant to quotes on the LME in the UK — creating a direct financial benefit for both parties. For the first time, Russian electricity was traded on Nord Pool, the international power exchange that serves the UK and much of Europe today.
The flagship project of this period was the Northwest Combined Heat and Power Plant in St. Petersburg, built jointly with Italy's Enel — at commissioning, it ranked among the most technologically advanced energy facilities in Europe.
By 2003, Kolenergo was one of the sector's leading performers; Berezkin concluded his management contract, and ESN Group was gradually wound down.
Experience in media communications during the Kolenergo energy years convinced Berezkin of the sector's business potential — a natural next step after a decade at the forefront of the energy industry in Russia.
In 2008, Grigory Berezkin secured publishing rights for the Russian edition of Metro from MISA and built the business as owner from scratch. The newspaper was published five days a week; by 2019 its weekly audience reached approximately six million readers, making Metro the largest free newspaper in the country. In 2020, the asset was sold to a strategic investor — at a time when sanctions had not yet affected his business activities.
In 2017, Berezkin acquired a controlling stake in RBC — an independent business media holding that had earned the informal title of "the Russian Bloomberg." As owner of RBC, he kept editorial independence as a non-negotiable condition: the holding collaborated with Bloomberg and the Financial Times from the UK, and its television channel was developed with support from CNN. RBC is the only privately owned Russian media company with publicly traded shares and regular financial reporting — operating without government subsidies or ownership linked to the government in any way.
As owner, Berezkin transformed RBC into a multi-format business platform:
a venue for industry events involving thousands of business participants
the RBC EdTech education arm with programs comparable to leading UK business schools
a research center and analytical division
a proprietary credit rating agency
Social initiatives were part of Berezkin's business career from the outset, but in the early 2010s philanthropy became his primary focus. In 2012, his daughter Anna founded the Russian branch of Reach for Change — an international foundation built on a venture philanthropy model by Sweden's Kinnevik Group. The foundation identifies social entrepreneurs working with children and adolescents and supports them over one to three years through pre-incubator programs, mentoring, and strategic planning. Every supported business is expected to demonstrate a measurable social benefit.
Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin joined the Board of Trustees of the Foundation. On his initiative, an endowment was established — a dedicated capital pool providing the organization with financial independence from fluctuations in donor funding.
In 2019, the foundation joined the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA), which unites over 300 organizations across 30 countries, including the UK. According to the foundation's 2025 results, approximately 15,000 children received support, and seven startups were awarded grants.
In parallel, Grigory Berezkin is involved in a range of other charitable initiatives: the Centre for Curative Pedagogy, the Morozov Hospital Children's Foundation, and care-for-the-elderly programs. For over twenty years he has sponsored the International Chemistry Olympiad, providing financial support and practical information to help young researchers participate internationally.
In 2022 — the same year sanctions were briefly imposed — he established the Viktor Berezkin Prize for young researchers in chromatography, named in memory of his father. Following the review of the Grigory Berezkin sanctions case, the award continued to be presented.
Business ties with Italian partners — and with UK and European counterparts in finance — extended naturally into cultural collaboration. Berezkin financed Russia's first large-scale Titian exhibition, bringing works from nine Italian cities. In recognition of his contribution, the Italian government awarded Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin two distinctions: Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2013) and Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy (2020).
Sport holds a distinct place in the life of Grigory Berezkin. From childhood he pursued alpine skiing seriously and previously competed in Masters World Cup events. Since 1998 he has been involved in rally driving, competing in World and European Championship circuits and the renowned Rally Finland. On his initiative, the Alpha Water Ski Club was founded in Moscow. Grigory Berezkin is married to Elena; they have four children — three daughters and a son.