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reRussian opponent Alexej Navalnyj, because of whose poisoning with Novichok is now being discussed about new sanctions against Russia, has often called for tougher punitive measures from the West. For example, after the poison attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018. In his YouTube broadcast, he has an audience of millions and made Navalnyj an increasingly dangerous opponent for President Putin, he said that many Russians hoped that “the British would finally punish the oligarchs.” He named three names, those of Roman Abramowitsch and Alisher Usmanov, two billionaires who invested and lived in London for years, as well as Igor Shuvalov, the then deputy prime minister and now head of the Vneschekonombank, where Navalnyj discovered a luxury apartment in the district. Government of London. would have.
Katharina wagner
Business Correspondent for Russia and the CIS based in Moscow.
If the British government “throws out” these three, Navalnyj said, it will hurt Putin’s regime. The personal sanctions against the pillars of power are a sign that the West is serious about “holding back Putin’s elite” and has the support of many people in Russia, he said last October.
On the other hand, Navalnyj rejects sectoral economic sanctions, such as those imposed on banks and companies by the EU and the United States for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014, because they harm the entire economy and citizens. Abramowitsch, Usmanow and Shuwalow are also regularly in the EU and own real estate in Germany and Austria, so they would definitely be banned from entering the EU.
Entry bans and frozen accounts
Already in 2014, Brussels banned representatives of the Russian power elite, accused of participating in the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, with entry bans and account blocking. There are four entrepreneurs on the list, including contractor Arkadij Rotenberg. Together with his brother Boris, he is considered the “King of state contracts” and also built a bridge from mainland Russia to occupied Crimea. After 2014, he sold some of his shares in oil, construction and real estate companies to his son Igor. Boris Rotenberg, who is also among the “inner circle” around Putin, has been under US sanctions since 2014, but not, like his brother, under EU sanctions, probably because he has Russian and Finnish citizenship.
Boris Rotenberg had invested in Finland for years together with Putin’s extremely wealthy friend Gennadij Timtschenko, who made his fortune in the oil trade and also has a Finnish passport. As a result of the 2014 sanctions, Boris Rotenberg transferred some of his Finnish assets to his son Roman, including a spa hotel, a sports stadium, and appearances on a professional ice hockey team.
Even if sanctioned businessmen can continue to profit from their EU possessions through such gimmicks, the entry bans would be a blow: for the richest Russians, before the crown pandemic with the closure of their borders, a trip Short to a western European metropolis was part of everyday life, just like Navalnyj and has tested his equipment in many investigations.
But his preference for Western Europe does not prevent “political oligarchs,” as Navalnyj called Putin’s favorites, from supporting the regime’s aggressive anti-Western course in Moscow. Entry bans would also prevent those affected from owning property in the EU; The sanctions had not done this enough so far, Navalnyj said last year: oligarchs and their families continued to travel undisturbed to the West.
According to Navalnyj, possible target of sanctions: Igor Shuvalov, as CEO of Vneschekonombank, manages Russia’s foreign debt.
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Image: Reuters
However, after the Skripal attack, the British government has begun scrutinizing some of the wealthiest Russians involved in Britain, including Roman Abramovich. His fortune, estimated at $ 11.3 billion, stems from an oil company that Abramovich bought cheaply in the chaos of privatizations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
