The UK expanded anti-Russia sanctions on Thursday, putting another seven Russian citizens on the blacklist. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin, the owner of London’s Chelsea FC Roman Abramovich, businessman Oleg Deripaska (EN+ Group), Chairman of Bank Rossiya board Dmitry Lebedev and Transneft president Nikolay Tokarev were placed under sanctions, according to the statement released by the Foreign Office.
All those sanctioned see a travel ban and their assets in the country frozen. They are also prohibited from making transactions with UK individuals and businesses, which may complicate the sale of Chelsea FС for Abramovich. Any aircraft belonging to designated Russian individuals may be removed from the UK aircraft register, even if the sanctioned individual is not on board.
“As part of the UK’s leading efforts to isolate [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and those around him, these oligarchs – who have a collective net worth of around £15bn – will have their assets in the UK frozen, they are banned from travelling here and no UK citizen or company may do business with them,” the statement said.
“Today’s sanctions are the latest step in the UK’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quoted as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine, stressing that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Western countries responded to the actions of the Russian authorities by slapping sanctions against individuals and legal entities.
All in all, the UK has imposed sanctions against 220 individuals and legal entities from Russia since the beginning of the military operation in Ukraine, whereas the total number of Russian individuals and entities on London’s sanctions list exceeds 500. Moreover, sanctions were slapped on the Bank of Russia and a number of Russian lenders, the British airspace was closed for Russian jets, the entry was closed for Russian vessels in ports.
