UK sanctions hit Chelsea boss Abramovich, other oligarchs, and aviation
On 10 March, the UK government announced that it was sanctioning ‘seven of Russia’s wealthiest and most influential oligarchs, whose business empires, wealth and connections are closely associated with the Kremlin,’ and whom, it said, have a collective net worth of £15bn.
They include the Roman Abramovich, owner of the football (soccer) club, Chelsea FC. Oleg Deripaska (a major shareholder in energy company EN+), Igor Sechin, Andrey Kostin, Alexei Miller (who is chairman of Gazprom), Nikolai Tokarev and Dmitri Lebedev.
The government said it has ‘published a licence which authorises a number of football-related activities to continue at Chelsea’, given the significant impact it would have and ‘potential knock-on effects’.
UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said that they had ‘Ukrainian blood on their hands,’ should ‘hang their heads in shame,’ and ‘have no place in our economy or society.’
A number of oligarchs, including those designated, have close social and business ties to the UK’s ruling Conservative Party. Three days before the designations, Conservative peer and former UK energy minister Lord Greg Barker, resigned as chairman from EN+. Barker has been described as the architect of the company’s response to the sanctioning of Oleg Deripaska by the United States in 2018.
Flight risk
On 9 March, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (‘FCDO’) announced ‘new powers to detain Russian aircraft and remove aircraft belonging to designated individuals and entities from the UK register,’ a ban ‘on the export of aviation and space-related goods and technology, including technical assistance,’ and ‘a further ban on UK companies providing insurance and re-insurance services in relation to these goods and technology.’
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss said that ‘a new suite of aviation sanctions’ meant that the government could ‘detain any Russian aircraft here in the UK’ and would also ‘strengthen the current overflight and landing ban on Russian aircraft…to make it a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK.’
The legislation also provides that ‘a person must not directly or indirectly provide insurance or reinsurance services relating to aviation and space goods or aviation and space technology – (a) to a person connected with Russia, or (b) for use in Russia.’
In a related development, on 8 March a private jet was impounded at Farnborough airport in the UK on the grounds of suspected links to the wealthy businessman Eugene Shvidler. The minister for transport, Grant Shapps told listeners to a radio programme, ‘We know that it isn’t a Russian company that holds the aircraft, it’s rather a Luxembourg-registered aircraft. We are carrying out further checks before releasing it and what we won’t do is allow any Russian oligarchs to pass on that jet when it does eventually go.’
