London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025

Questions raised over time-lag on UK moves to sanction oligarchs

Questions raised over time-lag on UK moves to sanction oligarchs

Only eight people named so far sanctioned in UK with critics saying a process likely to ‘take weeks and months’ allows time for ‘asset flight’
Liz Truss is facing mounting questions over why the Foreign Office will take “weeks and months” to sanction Russian oligarchs, with the UK lagging behind the US and EU after targeting just eight individuals with links to Vladmir Putin.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has for days been promising to target a “hit list” of oligarchs but refuses to say when the names will be ready, despite warnings from MPs that billionaires will already be taking their assets out of the country.

Senior Tory MPs have been growing increasingly frustrated by what they see as a lack of preparation on the part of the Foreign Office, with some having warned Truss months ago that the UK should be ready with a response against London-based oligarchs with links to Putin if Russia were to invade.

Labour also raised concern about “asset flight” by oligarchs who fear they may be hit by sanctions soon and worries that the UK is “off the pace” compared with the US and EU.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, claimed on Tuesday there were “legal reasons” for the time being taken, with officials trying to make sure sanctions are watertight against legal challenge.

Cabinet sources insisted the UK had been going further on hitting banks and financial operations with sanctions than other countries, with more than 120 entities targeted to date.

Asked whether more oligarchs would be blacklisted this week, a Foreign Office source said on Tuesday: “We will be sanctioning more oligarchs over the coming weeks and months.”

But David Davis, the Tory former Brexit secretary, said the financial industry sanctions “were not going to hit Putin where it hurts most”.

“We need to target many more of his allies and facilitators that have frankly bought their way into British society and that’s what’s really missing,” Davis said.

“We need to target those owning businesses on our stock exchange. We need to target those owning London homes that we can no longer afford because of Russian operations in London. We need to target oligarchs who own football clubs that many of our citizens can no longer afford to attend.”

He added: “I do worry about the government moving so slowly that its prey escapes it.”

In the House of Commons, Davis named Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire with property in London, saying “according to the Spanish national intelligence committee, he is one of the men who manages Putin’s business affairs. That is a really important issue about whether he should be on our target list.”

Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who recently passed stewardship of Chelsea FC to a charitable foundation, has vehemently disputed reportsalleging he is close to Putin or that he has done anything to merit sanctions.

Bob Seely, a Tory MP and member of the foreign affairs committee, said oligarchs needed to be under the spotlight as they were “not just obscenely rich people who are mates with someone” but part of the Kremlin’s “structure of control and power whether it is in east Ukraine or in the UK”.

The EU announced a list of sanctions against Russian businessmen on Monday night, including billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven. They have vowed to contest the restrictions.

Fridman is a Ukrainian-born energy tycoon who owns AlfaBank with his partners, including Aven. He bought and still owns Athlone House in Highgate, north London, for £65m in cash in 2016, according to the Land Registry.

The billionaire, who is one of Russia’s richest men, controls private equity firm LetterOne, which owns Holland & Barrett. In a letter to his employees this week, he called for an end to the “bloodshed” in Ukraine and stated that “war can never be the answer”, without directly criticising Putin.

Others to be sanctioned by the EU, but not the UK, include Alexei Mordashov, a major shareholder in TUI, the London-listed travel company. Alisher Usmanov, who has sponsorship links to Everton, also had his assets frozen as part of sanctions imposed by the European Union in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Uzbekistan-born billionaire’s USM Holdings sponsors Everton’s training ground, with an initial five-year deal announced in 2017.

Another Russian oligarch not sanctioned by the UK is Oleg Deripaska, who has been on the US sanctions list since 2018 over his alleged links to the Russian government, which he has taken legal action to challenge.

This week, Deripaska called for peace talks to begin “as fast as possible” in a post on the messaging app Telegram. “Peace is very important,” wrote Deripaska, who founded the Russian aluminium giant Rusal, in which he still owns a stake through shares in its London-listed parent company EN+ Group.

The British government strongly defended the sanctions it has already put in place. The Foreign Office source added: “Liz has been clear we have a hit list and we’ll be working our way through that as part of a rolling package. Nothing – and no one – is off the table.”

Robert Jenrick, another former Tory cabinet minister, also argued that the most important sanctions were those that have a “systemic impact on the Russian economy”.

He said parliament “should not be going down the rabbit hole of interest in individuals and oligarchs – important though that is – as that is not going to make a material difference in the short term”.

He added that many of those business people left Russia many years ago and are not currently close to Putin.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×