A political storm is brewing in Cyprus as lawmakers demand transparency over whether the state successfully recovered millions in unpaid taxes from a now-defunct company tied to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

The company, Blue Ocean Yacht Management, played a central role in a suspected offshore scheme that enabled Abramovich’s fleet of luxury yachts to avoid paying Value Added Tax (VAT) through allegedly fake chartering arrangements. Although the Cypriot Supreme Court upheld a €14 million VAT assessment against Blue Ocean in 2024, it remains unclear if the sum was ever paid before the company’s dissolution in July of that year.

MP Alexandra Attalides of the VOLT party has brought the issue before Parliament, calling for an official investigation into whether tax authorities ensured the recovery of the unpaid VAT. Attalides submitted the matter for discussion to the House Watchdog Committee as an ex officio item, citing unanswered parliamentary questions and the growing reputational risk to the Republic of Cyprus.

“It is unacceptable that Cypriot citizens are imprisoned over small debts, while Russian oligarchs appear above the law,” she said. “The state must explain whether this money was recovered and what steps were taken before the company was dissolved.”

Her concerns are based on a series of investigations published by the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network (CIReN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which exposed a fraudulent structure used to classify Abramovich’s superyachts as “commercial vessels.” Internal emails leaked to journalists showed that company advisors had flagged the tax avoidance scheme as “high-risk,” with some acknowledging its dubious legal grounding.