The fall of Abramovich anticipates more pressure on the Russian oligarchs

The sale of the Chelsea football club by the millionaire Roman Abramovich it is the most visible fruit so far of the pressure on the Russian oligarchs in the United Kingdom, but this has not silenced those who demand that the British Government be more forceful.

Russian money in London is the great taboo facing the Executive of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. On the one hand, the United Kingdom shows itself in words and actions as one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies. On the other hand, only a handful of oligarchs are currently affected by sanctions that they will not have much trouble circumventing.

The Ukrainian community and the opposition demand that action be taken immediately against the properties of these tycoons: yachts, houses, private jets… Almost all of them, yes, protected under the umbrella of some company based in a tax haven.

Sources from Downing Street – the prime minister’s office – acknowledge that the laws require respecting a process that can slow down the confiscation of assets by up to months.

Abramovich himself, despite having been forced to sell Chelsea, has not been sanctioned, despite calls for it.

“We understand that some of these people have very deep pockets. (But) that doesn’t mean they are immune or exempt in any way,” Secretary of State for Security Damian Hinds told the BBC.

The person in charge also denied that the conservative Executive fears the possible legal repercussions of new measures of expropriation or blockade of capitals. “There will be more people who can be sanctioned,” Hinds emphasized.

According to the “Financial Times” newspaper, the British government is finalizing plans to seize the properties of the oligarchs that have so far been subject to sanctions in this country.

Although the measure has not yet been decided, the Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Michael Gove, is analyzing, together with the Executive’s legal advisers, the possibilities of confiscating these assets without breaking legal security or the guarantees for private property.

So far, the UK has frozen the assets of nine Russian oligarchs, including Kirill Shamalov, the former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin; Denis Bortnikov, Vice President of VTB Bank; Elena Georgieva, President of Novikombank; and Gennadi Timchenko, a billionaire friend of Putin.

But the list of those who have so far escaped sanctions is much longer. And it contains a name that produces special astonishment among anti-corruption activists: that of Evgueni Lebedev, the billionaire son of a former agent of the Russian intelligence services, who bought the London evening newspaper “Evening Standard” in 2009.

Lebedev embodies like no other the promiscuous relationship between Russian money and British politics, as he was nominated by Boris Johnson himself in 2020 to occupy a life seat in the House of Lords.

Although the British security services were suspicious of Lebedev, this did not prevent the prime minister from rewarding him with admission to the upper house as thanks for the intense campaign in favor of his election as mayor of London that his newspaper did.

For what might come, the tycoon used the pages of the evening paper this week to call on Putin to stop the war.

“As a Russian citizen, I beg of you that the Russians stop killing your Ukrainian brothers and sisters. As a British citizen, I ask you to save Europe from war,” Lebedev wrote.

In few areas is the influence of Russian petrodollars more publicly perceived than in football, as made clear the day before (Wednesday) by Abramovich’s announcement that he is putting the club up for sale and that he will allocate the profits to the victims of the war in Ukraine.

But the conservative government’s delay in applying the punishments raises fears that by the time they are imposed, the billionaires will already have been able to put their fortunes in a safe place.

“Why is the government allowing oligarchs like Abramovich the time and advance notice to straighten out their businesses and divest from any assets that could be subject to sanctions?” Labor MP Chris Elmore asked the Culture and Sport Minister. , Nadine Dorries, this Thursday in Parliament.

To which Dorries replied that the Chelsea owner’s decision represents a “turning point” after “Russian investment (in football) has been tolerated for too long”, although he specified that they must ensure that “clubs continue to being viable”.