On Thursday, March 10, the U.K. government released a list of Russian oligarchs who have been sanctioned and the list includes Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich and his one time business partner Oleg Deripaska. The others, according to the press release, include Igor Sechin and people who are said to belong to Putin’s inner circle. Their collective worth is roughly £15 billion.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss announced a total asset freeze as well as a travel ban on 7 Russian oligarchs as their businesses and wealth is closely associated with the Kremlin. They will be banned from traveling to the U.K. and no citizen or company of the country may conduct business with them.
The 7 on the list include
Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea F.C., worth roughly £9 billion. He also has stakes in Evraz, a giant steel company and Norilsk Nickel.
Oleg Deripaska, worth roughly £2 billion, former partner of Abramovich, with stakes in En+ group.
Igor Sechin, who is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Rosneft.
Andrey Kostin, who is the chairman of VTB bank.
Alexei Miller, who is the CEO of Gazprom, a huge energy company based in Russia.
Nikolai Tokarev who is the president of Transneft, a company owned by Russia
Dmitri Lebedev who is the chairman of Bank Rossiya.
The U.K. government will enforce the Economic Crime Bill next week. This will let the government act further and faster to simplify the process of applying sanctions on individuals who are helping or have helped the Kremlin.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that there could be no “safe havens” for the people who supported Putin and that they would ruthlessly pursue those who enabled “the killing of civilians, the destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of sovereign allies.
Nadine Dorries, who is the Culture Secretary, tweeted that Chelsea F.C. would be allowed to operate and it will be given a “special license.”
Opposition leader Keir Starmer, who is on a visit to Estonia where U.K. troops are based, said that they had called for the sanctions, weeks ago and that they needed to go “further and faster.”
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