The Imperial War Museum (IWM) has said it is retaining the funding it received from Roman Abramovich for its Holocaust Galleries, after consulting the UK government on the implications of sanctions.
The oligarch was disqualified last week by the Premier League from being a director of Chelsea football club after sanctions imposed on him following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The IWM announced in 2018 that Abramovich, who is Jewish, had made a “generous contribution” to enable its London museum to realise a £30.5m project to create second world war galleries, a Holocaust gallery and a digitally enabled learning suite.
IWM told the Guardian on Wednesday: “IWM is retaining the funds from Roman Abramovich, which were invested into the Holocaust Galleries at IWM London. This is compliant with all government regulations regarding sanctions.”
Asked how much Abramovich had provided, a spokesperson said: “As this was a private donation, IWM is not disclosing the amount donated by Mr Abramovich to the new galleries.”
The new galleries opened last year at the IWM, which became the first museum in the world to house second world war and holocaust galleries under the same roof.
Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre has meanwhile “suspended its strategic partnership” with Abramovich, who was granted Israeli citizenship in 2018.
Jewish groups earlier this month condemned a Russian missile attack near a Holocaust memorial park in Kyiv, which commemorates the murder of Jews at Babyn Yar by Nazis in the second world war. At least five civilians were reportedly killed in the missile attack.
Abramovich was seen at the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Monday, shortly before a jet linked to him took off for Istanbul.
The sanctions against him – brought in years after campaigners first raised concerns about his ties to the Russian president – have come amid a wider western crackdown on the country’s wealthy business elite.
Abramovich was among several Russian billionaires added to an EU blacklist before he was put on a British sanctions list last week.
Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said on Wednesday that the country would implement EU sanctions against Abramovich but could not ban him entering the country because he was a citizen there.
The billionaire was granted Portuguese citizenship last year based on the 2015 law, which the Portuguese government said it was now tightening, that offers naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the medieval Inquisition.
The Premier League’s decision last week to bar Abramovich from being a director of Chelsea in effect forced him to push ahead with his sale of the club.
