Posted 1 февраля 2022,, 06:44

Published 1 февраля 2022,, 06:44

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

"We'll get everyone!" What can be taken away from Russian oligarchs in England

"We'll get everyone!" What can be taken away from Russian oligarchs in England

1 февраля 2022, 06:44
Фото: yaplakal.com
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Sky News threatened Russian oligarchs working for the Kremlin with confiscation of property in the United Kingdom. However, none of the wealthy Russians panicked and did not urgently get rid of their property in London or Manchester.

Sergey Kron

According to incomplete calculations by the Foreign Office, at least 10,000 people have "settled" wealthy Russians in London alone. And to all of them, as Truss said, “we won’t be able to hide, we’ll get everyone!”

Official London explained its threats "with a high degree of probability" by the upcoming Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

"We won't go into details about who gets sanctioned and under what, this bill will allow us to hit a wider range of targets, so there won't be anyone who thinks they're immune from sanctions", - Truss said. Speaking on BBC TV, the minister explained that the new bill would make it possible to introduce restrictions not only against companies directly related to the situation around Ukraine, but also against any companies "of interest to the Kremlin".

“The UK's statement is a cause for serious concern for international financial and business structures”, - said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian president. “Elizabeth Truss spoke about some sanctions, but we must call everything by its proper name: sanctions are something legitimate and something formalized by the decision of the UN Security Council, and in this case we are talking about an undisguised attack on business.”

Peskov recalled that "many Russian companies also have British companies as strategic partners, co-investors and shareholders." Therefore, Peskov believes, "the UK cabinet is actually threatening its own big businessmen."

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, published a response to the British minister in her telegram channel: “The main thing is not to take a step back, Mrs Truss! We really hope for you. Yes, by the way, there you have a list of which of the corrupt officials Russia asked to extradite.

Back in 2015, Deutsche Bank analysts analyzed the data of the Russian and British Central Banks and came to the conclusion that since 2006, about 129 billion dollars have “leaked” from the Russian Federation to the UK through secret schemes and accounts.

Recently, The Sunday Times published an annual list of the 1,000 richest people in Britain. It included not only citizens of the country, but also Russians who live or work in the United Kingdom.

The Sunday Times list is based on publicly known fortunes in the form of stocks, land, real estate or works of art. Funds in banks were not taken into account, since there is no access to such information.

So, who are these ex-USSR people who are on the list of the richest people in the UK, and who, according to Liz Truss, are closely connected to the Kremlin? Here are just a few notable examples.

Leonid Blavatnik ranks third in the newspaper's list. His fortune is estimated at 15.2 billion pounds (20.6 billion dollars).

Until recently, Leonid was considered the richest person in the Kingdom, but his fortune has decreased by almost 1 billion due to the pandemic.

Blavatnik earns money from investments, in particular, in the Russian industrial company Renova, as well as in the music industry and the media. So he owns the record company Warner Music Group.

Former Odessa citizen Leonid Blavatnik permanently lives in London. In 2010, he became a British subject. The billionaire is actively involved in charity work, for which he was knighted in 2017. The new wing of London's Tate Modern is named after him: a wealthy "Russian" has donated £50m to the museum.

Yevgeny Shvidler is also on The Sunday Times list. His fortune is estimated at 1.1 billion pounds (1.5 billion dollars). He is a childhood friend and longtime business partner of Israeli and Portuguese citizen Roman Abramovich. The businessman is on the board of directors of Evraz, an international steel and mining company based in London. His share in it is estimated at 162.1 million pounds.

Shvidler is known for his dislike of wasting money. So, in 2017, he moored the yacht Le Grand Bleu received as a gift from Abramovich at the Statue of Liberty in New York in order to avoid paying port dues.

In the list of The Sunday Times, the widow of the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, Yelena Baturina took 160th place. The newspaper estimated her fortune at 882 million pounds (1.1 billion dollars). She currently owns a chain of hotels in Russia, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Austria. It also invests in renewable energy in southern Europe and has acquired a 75% stake in a German construction company.

Baturina lives on a 5,500-hectare estate in Hampshire. She has one of the largest collections of products from the Imperial Porcelain Factory in the world.

The value of real estate, which is now owned by Russian oligarchs in the UK, experts estimate at 1.1 billion pounds. And if the authorities decide to punish wealthy Russians for their connection with Moscow, London will shamelessly expropriate mansions, estates, apartments and castles - in a word, everything that it considers necessary to take away. Here are just a few examples of ultra-high-end property owners in the United Kingdom.

According to Forbes, having bought the townhouse Hanover Lodge in 2014 for 120 million pounds, the former top manager of Gazprom Andrey Goncharenko set a record - the deal became the most expensive in the UK real estate market that year. House of 250 sq. m is located in Regent's Park, one of the main royal parks in London.

In 2006, the former head of Vnesheconombank, Vladimir Chernukhin, bought a 6-storey mansion in London, where the headquarters of Midland Bank had been for a long time and the final scenes of Goldfinger were filmed. In 2008, Chernukhin rebuilt the building into a hotel. Now it houses the hotel for millionaires The Ned.

Socialite Olga Slutsker became the owner of a house in London after a divorce and lawsuit from businessman Vladimir Slutsker. The house was purchased by the couple in 2000 through an offshore trust in the Cayman Islands for just £6 million, but now, after numerous rebuilds, the price of the property could exceed £100 million.

The main shareholder of EuroChem and SUEK Andrey Melnikov bought the Harewood Estate in 2005. On a plot of more than 14 hectares, in addition to the house, there is a spa center and a swimming pool. The estate has 20 bedrooms and 20 living rooms, after the purchase, the French architect Jacques Garcia worked on the interior design. The house has marble floors and 18th century French furniture.

According to political scientist, member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation Bogdan Bezpalko, the threat of the British Foreign Minister to confiscate rich real estate from Russian oligarchs is purely a PR move.

"The fact is that high-ranking British officials have made similar statements before, which then nothing followed. According to some estimates, about 100,000 wealthy citizens from Russia currently live in London, many of whom the British law enforcement agencies at various times simply refused to extradite us, despite the materials provided. Many of the capital obtained illegally. This is known, there is evidence, but there was no confiscation of capital, and these figures themselves continue to live in London. I don’t remember a mass seizure of assets, arrests of accounts, property, or something like that”, - Bezpalko said.

It is expected that a bill to tighten anti-Russian sanctions will be submitted to the UK Parliament before February 1, 2022.

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