Putin’s reach into Israel: Russia pursues assets of Jewish oligarchs who fled Moscow

A quiet but increasingly consequential legal battle is unfolding in Israel, where Russian authorities have initiated 22 proceedings against Jewish immigrants from Russia in an effort to seize assets they still own in the country. The property at stake is estimated by those involved at no less than 2 billion rubles, roughly 70 million shekels. The proceedings rely on a legal framework established between Israel and Russia in 2018. Under Israeli insolvency law, courts can recognize foreign bankruptcy proceedings, including Russian bankruptcy declarations, as part of rules governing cross-border insolvency. People familiar with the cases argue that, unlike the United States and European countries that largely stopped cooperating with Russian legal proceedings after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that followed, Israeli courts continue to recognize Russian judgments in what they describe as an overly technical process.