UK Freezes Assets Belonging to Roman Abramovich, Six Other Russian Oligarchs

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja with agency report

Chelsea Football Club owner, Roman Abramovich, has been hit with an assets freeze and travel ban as part of new UK government sanctions targeting seven Russian oligarchs.

Among others sanctioned are leading industrialist Oleg Deripaska, Chief Executive, Rosneft, Igor Sechin and the Head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, the government announced on Thursday.
Speculation had swirled for weeks about whether Abramovich would be included in the targeted action against Russian billionaires perceived to be close to the Kremlin.

Abramovich announced last week that he was selling Chelsea, after buying the English Premier League side in 2003 and bankrolling its successes at the domestic and European level.
The UK government estimated his net worth at £9.4 billion ($12.3billion), but said it was mitigating the effect of the sanctions on Chelsea by allowing the club to continue to operate.

A special licence “authorises a number of football-related activities”, the government said in a statement.
“This includes permissions for the club to continue playing matches and other football-related activity which will in turn protect the Premier League, the wider football pyramid, loyal fans and other clubs,” it added.

Deripaska, who has stakes in En+ Group, an Anglo-Russian green energy and metals company, is Abramovich’s one-time business partner, while officials described Sechin as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “right-hand man”.
The four others – Miller, VTB bank chairman Andrey Kostin, Transneft chief Nikolai Tokarev and Bank Rossiya chairman Dmitri Lebedev – are part of his inner circle, according to the UK government.

Collectively, the seven have a net worth of about £15 billion ($19.2bn), the statement read.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to Aljazeera, called the sanctions “the latest step in the UK’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people”.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss added: “Today’s sanctions show once again that oligarchs and kleptocrats have no place in our economy or society.

“With their close links to Putin they are complicit in his aggression. The blood of the Ukrainian people is on their hands. They should hang their heads in shame,” she said.

The government’s statement also noted that a new Economic Crime Bill will go into effect next week and will “significantly simplify” the process of imposing sanctions.

In total, the U.K’s updated sanctions list includes 65 individuals and entities linked to the Russian government.
“There can be no safe havens for those who have supported Putin’s vicious assault on Ukraine…We will be ruthless in pursuing those who enable the killing of civilians, destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of sovereign allies,” Johnson stated.

With the latest action, the Chelsea owner’s plan to sell the Premier League club will be stalled after his assets were frozen by the UK Government.

The prime minister had last week promised to publish a list of Russian elites who are said to have links to President Vladimir Putin’s regime, with officials saying work was being undertaken to build the legal case for further sanctions on individuals.

 Johnson’s administration has faced criticism for failing to target oligarchs and their assets in the same way the European Union has done, with Brussels seizing super yachts owned by wealthy figures in recent days.
The UK Government had deemed that Abramovich has obtained “a financial benefit or other material benefit from Putin and the government of Russia”.

Those benefits included: “Tax breaks received by companies linked to him, buying and selling shares from and to the state at favourable rates, and the contracts received in the run-up to the FIFA 2018 World Cup”.
He has also been targeted for his associations through “close business relationships and mutual assistance” with already-sanctioned Igor Shuvalov, a former Russian deputy prime minister and general director of Russian gas giant Gazprom,

The Foreign Office also concluded that Abramovich “is or has been involved in destabilising Ukraine” via Evraz plc, a steel manufacturing and mining company in which he has “a significant shareholding and… exercises effective control”.

The department said the firm has been involved in “potentially supplying steel to the Russian military which may have been used in the production of tanks”.

The Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries  confirmed that a special licence will be issued to the Premier League club to allow it to continue operating after its owner was sanctioned, Independent UK, reported.

 Dorries said it will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing season ticket holders to attend matches.

Abramovich announced last week that he was putting the club up for sale, a process that will now be stalled but could still go through provided the Government issues a licence. But the owner would have to prove he would not benefit from the sale to meet conditions of any potential licence.

The travel ban means the Russian-Israeli billionaire, who is worth about £9.4 billion and also has stakes in mining firm Norilsk Nickel, will not be permitted to enter the UK.

Jets and yachts owned or chartered by  Abramovich can be seized, the sanctions say. Abramovich sold a 73 per cent stake in Russian oil firm Sibneft to state-owned gas titan Gazprom for £9.87 billion in 2005.

He is said to be one of the few oligarchs from the 1990s to maintain prominence under Putin.