Russian train billionaire sues Canadian government to be removed from sanctions list

Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a ceremony to award staff of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology - Russian ballistic missiles developer, on the outskirts of Moscow on May 13, 2026. Photo by YEVGENY BIYATOV /POOL/AFP via Getty Images

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OTTAWA — Nikita Anatolyevich Mishin, a Russian billionaire Canada says is an oligarch associated with Vladimir Putin, is suing the federal government to be removed from the country’s sanctions list.

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In a lawsuit filed last week, Mishin argues that his addition in 2024 to Canada’s list of people sanctioned due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “an error” and that he opposes Putin’s war.

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Now, he’s asking a Federal Court judge to order the federal government to reconsider his multiple requests to be removed from Canada’s sanction list, which he has previously said unduly impose consequences on him “akin to criminal penalties.”

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“These include the denial of access to ordinary services from banks and other financial institutions, exclusion from employment opportunities, severe reputational damage and the inability to travel to Canada,” Mishin argued in an earlier lawsuit linked to his efforts to be removed from the sanctions list.

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Mishin is a Russian billionaire who made his fortune as the co-founder of Russia’s largest train operator, Globaltrans. According to media reports at the time, Mishin sold his shares in the publicly-traded company in January 2024, one month before he was sanctioned by Canada.

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According to government documents filed by Mishin to Federal Court, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) added him to the sanctions list due in part to his attending the 2019 Gaidar Forum meeting, “a yearly conference organized and funded by the Russian regime”, along with other senior Russian entrepreneurs and political figures who are also sanctioned by Canada.

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GAC also pointed to his attending a meeting of he Moscow State University Board of Trustees, where he was pictured with another sanctioned Russian individual, to justify maintaining him on the sanctions list.

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“Your involvement in these senior-level meetings affiliated to the Russian government, following your relocation to the United Kingdom, illustrates your continued alignment with the Russian regime and signals support for and complicity with the regime’s actions,” reads the January 7, 2025, letter from GAC to Mishin explaining why he was originally sanctioned.

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Mishin appealed the decision to GAC and asked the department and then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly to reconsider.

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“The educational events occurred six years ago and three years before the invasion of Ukraine, during a time when Western governments and institutions, including those of Canada, continued to engage full-heartedly with Russia. These educational events had nothing to do with supporting the Russian regime or its invasion in Ukraine,” Mishin’s lawyers told GAC in early January 2025.